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POEMS ON OHIO 



COLLECTED AND ANNOTATED 

By C. L. MARTZOLFF 



PUBLISHED BY THE OHIO STATE ARCHAEOLOGICAL. 
AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY 



COLUMBUS. OHIO 

F. J. HEER PRINTING COMPANY 

1911 



.Q3IM3 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
RECEIVED 

DEC 2i lb29 

DOCUMENTS DIVISION 



POEMS ON OHIO. 



BACK IN OLD OHIO^ 

Pardon, stranger, did you say you're from Ohio ? Shake. 

Born there, was you? Well, I guess we're 'bout of the same 

make, 
An' I'm mighty glad to see you, stranger, for the sake 
Of the love I bear to old Ohio. 

What is that ? You're from the hills ? Well, shake again, by Jo ! 
From the hills along the river, where the buckeyes grow, 
I hain't been there, I guess, since twenty years ago. 
But my heart is full of old Ohio. 

Down the river ! Fished there many a summer afternoon. 
Sat and dreamed there, too, on many a balmy night in June, 
Lookin' o'er the water where I see the risin' moon 
Smilin' white across the old Ohio. 

Twenty years a schemin' in among the crowds of men ! 
Twenty years ! I've seen a heap of this world since then, 
But tonight I'd kind o' like to wander back agin. 
Back among the hills of old Ohio. 

Sweetest times are the old times, like them we used to know ! 
Sweetest scenes an' sweetest dreams are them of long ago ; 
When we sat upon the banks and listened to the flow 
Of the waves along the old Ohio. 

Still her spell is on me, an' her music's in my ears, ^ 

Still her beauty shines to me, although it be through tears. 
Still my heart goes back to her across the gap of years. 
Back unto the scenes of old Ohio. 



^This anonymous poem appeared in The Ohio Magazine, January, 
1907. 

(1) 



2 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Ain't no better State than that upon God's rolHn' earth; 
Ain't no better people ever got this side of birth, 
Of more real bottom an' more energy an' worth, 
Than the folks that's raised in old Ohio. 

Boastin' am I ? Well, that's a Buckeye's f ailin' ; but 
State of Garfield, Grant and Sherman's got a right to strut, 
Read the names of soldiers an' of statesmen that were cut 
On the shaft of Fame by old Ohio. 

Mighty glad to see you, stranger, does a feller good ; 
Fills him with a sentiment of kin an' brotherhood ; 
Makes him feel as if he'd met a feller "of the blood," 
When he strikes a man from old Ohio. 

Sweetest times are the old times, the days of long ago, 
Sweetest scenes an' sweetest dreams are them we used to know. 
On the hills along the river where the buckeyes grow, 
In the Royal State of old Ohio. 



IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO. 

By Nellie Grant, Oak Harbor, O.^ 

On that fair morn when Liberty awakened 

To view the thralldom of the eastern world, 

She pushed across the ocean westward — 

There placed her standard and her flag unfurled. 

There to a home of freedom and of plenty 

She beckoned the oppressed of all the earth : 

They came, of every tongue, of all conditions ; 
And thus a wondrous nation had its birth. 



^ This Ohio Appreciation was written at the Ottawa County Teachers' 
Institute, by Miss Grant, a teacher. It was inspired by hearing the 
Editor's Lecture on "Ohio and the Ohioans." 



Poems on Ohio. 

But as the goddess viewed the growing empire — 

She musing said, ''Among these states most blest 

Will I erect one greater than all the others, 
And make it type of all the rest." 

She chose a tract between a lake and river, 

That lay apart like westward opening gates ; 

And there upon the hills, within the valleys 
Arose Ohio-best of all the states. 



WESTERN SCENERY. 

By Ephraim Peabody. (1807-56.)^ 

Morn on the Alleghanies ! on their side 

Crossing a rocky promontory's brow, 

That juts out o'er the wilderness below, 

A band of emigrants may be descried. 

Dawn on the mountains ! Gloriously the morn 

Purples along the seat. The stars are shorn 

And struggle forward with thin rays and white. 

Then fade and vanish in the advancing light. 

O'er the far forest line, the herald beams 

Of morning upward blaze in rushing streams ; 

And the imperial sun as he ascends 

His sceptered rays extends 

To the far summits that to heaven aspire — 

And at the touch they glow with heaven's own fire. 

The awakening mountain breezes lift 

The mists that hang in the deep vales, and drift 



^Ephraim Peabody, D. D., was a native of Wilton, N. H., graduated 
at Bowdoin College, 1827, and subsequently studied theology at Cam- 
bridge ; pastor of a Unitarian church in Cincinnati, 1831-38 ; pastor New 
Bedford, 1838-46; minister King's Chapel, Boston, 1846 until his death. 
During his life time he published a number of occasional sermons, essays, 
poems, etc., three articles in North American Review (1829), and a dis- 
course delivered at the centennial celebration, 1840. 



Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Their folds, now fiery, and now dark, aloft — 
They rise — scattered and thin and soft — 
The incense of these mountain altars — to the clear 
Blue dome of heaven and disappear. 
As touched by Prospero's wand, a wide expanse 
Opens at once upon their backward glance ; 
Far down a circling vale, wherein the might 
Of nations could do battle for a nation's right ; 
Around — heights over heights the vale embrace, 
Like levels round some vast arena's space. 
And far beyond, the clouds around them furled 
Heaves each long mountain range — a rampart of the 
world. 

Upon the naked promontory's brow 

That overhung the wilderness below. 

The travelers paused to look upon the scene. 

The wife upon her husband's arm did lean, 

And he upon his rifle silently. 

Hushed even was happy Childhood's morning glee. 

The vastness of the scene weighed down the sense, 

The man felt nothing but his impotence. 

And His supremacy who reigns alone, 

''The earth his footstool and the heavens His throne." 

Sublimest was the awful silence there 

Hushing the very progress of the air, 

Through the deep vale below a river flowed, 

Falling at times in silver sheets — then hid 

The overhanging wilderness amid — 

Now hurrying 'tween the jagged rocks and rude; 

Yet not a murmur rose to where they stood. 

The infrequent clouds drifted across the sky 

Ever and ever floating silently. 

Upon the topmost crag, splintered and bare, 

Its angles glittering in the morning's glare 

With an unsteady wing 

And naked talons balancing. 



Poems on Ohio. 

An eagle sat and screamed to the silence; — hill 
And wood and silent cloud echoed his accents shrill. 



THE WEST.* 

By William D. Gallagher. (1808- 1894.)'' 

Broad plains — blue waters — hills and valleys, 
That ring with anthems of the free ! 

Brown-pillared groves with green-arched alleys, 
That Freedom's holiest temples be ! 

These forest aisles are full of story; — 

Here many a one of old renown 
First sought the meteor-light of glory, 

And 'mid its transient flash went down. 

Historic names forever greet us 

Where'er our wandering way we thread; 
Familiar forms and faces meet us — 

As living walk with us the dead. 

Man's fame so often evanescent, 

Links here with thoughts and things that last; 
And all the bright and teeming Present, 
Thrills with the great and glorious Past. 



* This poem was written for Coggeshall's 'Toets and Poetry of the 
West" (1861). 

^ Born in Philadelphia. His father had participated in the Irish 
Rebellion of 1803. That cost Robert Emmett his life. He died when 
his son was eight years of age. The latter was apprenticed to a Cin- 
cinnati printer and for many years led the life of a successful journalist 
but unsuccessful business man. He was connected with many unsuccessful 
newspaper ventures in Ohio. His most important enterprise was the 
publication of the Hesperian, a monthly miscellany of general literature. 
But three volumes were published. A well written biography of Mr. 
Gallagher, by W. H. Venable, appears in Volume I of the Ohio Archaeo- 
logical and Historical Society's Publications. 



Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

THE OHIO.« 

By Littell McClung. 

Smooth, shining steel close binds thy verdant sides 
And stretches far to lofty heights that stand, 

Like sentinels, watching over white-sailed tides. 
That bear to thee the fruits of every land. 

Grim, iron monsters, breathing breath of steam. 
Rush by thy noble bosom's crested flow. 

And smoke of mighty cities blurs the gleam 
That makes thee silver in the after-glow. 

Yet, over thee, O river deep and wide. 

Fond Romance still the blush of beauty rings; 

And to thy dreamy vales where shadows hide. 
The mystic Spirit-of-the-Past still clings. 



THE BUCKEYES 

By Kate Brownlee Sherwood. (1841-).* 

In the forests of Ohio, 
Fringing river, lake and bayou, 
Lifting up a brave sorosis 

Of white pedicles of bloom; 
And a flush of leaves indented, 
Like a welcome hand presented, 
Comes the Buckeye, prince and prophet, 
In the spring's unquiet gloom. 



e 



Courtesy of The Ohio Magazine. 

' Courtesy of The Ohio Magazine. 

*"No list of Western poets would be complete without the name of 
Kate Brownlee Sherwood, of Toledo, whose patriotic pen gave the State 
and the Republic those inspiring books, 'Camp Fire and Memorial Day 
Poems,' and 'Dreams of the Age,' a Poem of Columbia." — W. H. Venah'le. 



Poems on Ohio. 

While the tardy oaks are sleeping, 
And the lonesome elms are weeping, 
And the maple groves grow tipsy 

With a saccharine delight; 
Through the solemn shades and hushes 
Glad the green-robed prophet rushes, 
With a prophecy of plenty 

Through the dusky dreams of night. 

When the clearing axe was flashing, 
And the migrant teal were plashing, 
And the pioneer looked wistfully 

For sign of bird and bee; 
He beheld his promised summer 
In the prophet, earliest comer, 
And said, "Buckeye, brave and bounteous, 

My sign and symbol be." 

Then the children's hearts grew merry, 
As they searched for bud and berry, 
And they carried home the blossoms 

To the mother sweet and calm ; 
And the lads went gaily, going 
To the seeding and the sowing. 
And the maidens sifted poppies 

Through long rows of sage and balm. 

Sturdy Buckeye, live and flourish! 

Let a mighty people nourish 

In their groves and in their gardens 

All thy beauties, emblem tree 1 
Toss thy plumes when spring comes waking, 
Valiant souls to action ! Taking 
From thy courage inspiration — 

Flower and fruitage follow thee. 



8 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

THE OHIO. 

By Sarah Louisa P. Smith.^ (1811-1832.) 

The moonlight sleeps upon thy shores, 

Fair river of the West ! 
And the soft sound of dipping oars 

Just breaks thy evening rest. 
Full many a bark its silver path 

Is tracing o'er thy tide; 
And list, the sound of song and laugh 

Floats onward where they glide. 
They're from light hearts, those sounds so gay. 

Whose home and hopes are here 
But one whose home is far away 

Their music fails to cheer. 

The woods of Indiana frown 

Along the distant shore. 
And send their deep black shadows down 

Upon the glassy floor; 
Many a tree is blooming there — 

Mid flowers o'er spread the ground, 
And thousand vines of foliage rare 

The trunks are wreathed around. 
But though the summer robe is gay 

On every hill and tree, 
The gray woods rising far away 

Are fairer still to me. 



" Mrs. Smith was the grand-daughter of Major-General Hull, who 
surrendered Detroit in the War of 1812. Her maiden name was Sarah 
Louisa P. Hickman. She was born in Detroit. At an early age she began 
writing verses, much to the delight of the family. She received her 
education at Newton, Massachusetts. In her eighteenth year her marriage 
with Samuel Jenks Smith, an editor of Providence, Rhode Island, oc- 
curred. Her husband in the same year published a volume of her poems. 
In 1829 she moved to Cincinnati where she continued her writings on 
various themes. Her health now went into decline and on a visit to New- 
York City she died, in the twenty-first year of her age. 



Poems on Ohio. 

Yon cloudless moon tonight looks down 

Upon no lovelier sight, 
Than the river winding proudly on — 

Yet, beautiful in might ; 
Onward still to the mighty West 

Where the prairie wastes unfold, 
Where the Indian chieftain went to rest 

As his last war-signal rolled. 
No — never arched the blue skies o'er 

A wave more fair and free — 
But the stream around my mother s door 

Is dearer far to me. 



TO THE LITTLE MIAMI RIVER. 

By William H. Venable. (i836-)^<> 

Romantic the rocky and fern-scented regions, 
Miami, the grots where thy brambles begin, 

By cedars and hemlocks, in evergreen legions. 
With silence and twilight seclusion shut in. 

There darkling recesses in miniature mountains 
Recall to my fancy the haunts of the gnome; 

There fabled Undina might rise from the fountains, 
Or sport in the water-falls gHstening foam. 



"William Henry Venable, born in Warren County, Ohio, graduated 
at National Normal University in I860; taught in Lebanon Normal 
School and later was principal Jennings Academy, Indiana ; professor 
natural sciences 1862-81 ; principal and proprietor 1881-6, Chickering 
Institution ; professor English Literature, Hughes High School, 1889-90 ; 
Walnut Hills High School later; Author History of United States 1872; 
June on the Miami, 1872 ; The Teacher's Dream, 1881 ; Melodies of the 
Heart, 1865 ; Footprints of the Pioneers, 1888 ; Beginning of Literary 
Culture in Ohio Valley, 1891; John Hancock, Educator, 1892; Tales 
from Ohio History, 1896; Dream of Empire, 1901; Tom Tad, 1902: 
Saga of the Oak, 1904. 



10 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Now laughing in ripples and dancing the sedges, 
Now fretting the minnows in eddy and whirl, 

Now kissing the pebbles that sprinkle thy edges, 

And laving the pearl and the mother-of-pearl ; 

Glide, whispering now under sycamore shadow. 
Now singing by hamlet and cottage and mill, 

Now shimmering onward through flowery meadow, 
Now glassing the image of foresty hill. 

The farm boy as careless he follows the harrow 

O'er lowlands which quicken and ripen the maize, 

Reads oft in some token of stone — axe or arrow. 
The wars and the loves of unchronicled days. 

Then steals on the air with thy murmuring numbers 
A moan of lament for a race and its lore, — 
A sigh for yon chieftan forgotten, who slumbers 
Beneath the lone mound on thy emerald shore. 



THE BUCKEYE. 

By Alice Williams Brotherton.^^ 

The rose and the thistle and the shamrock green 
And the leek are the flowers of Britain; 

The fleur-de-lys on the flag of France 
In a band of blood is written; 



u 



Alice Williams Brotherton, born at Cambridge, Indiana, educated 
at a Cincinnati High School. After her marriage she continued to live 
in this city. She has contributed to The Century, The Atlantic Monthly, 
and other periodicals. She published a book of verse in 1886, "Beyond 
the Veil" in 1887, 'The Sailing of King Olaf and Other Poems," and 
"What the Wind Told the Tree-Tops" (prose and verse, 1888). Mrs. 
Brotherton is a prominent club-woman of Cincinnati. For some years 
she has made a close study of Shakespeare and other literary topics. 



Poems on Ohio. 11 

But what shall we claim for our own fair land, 

What flower for our own fair token ? 
The golden rod ? or the tasseled maize ? 

For each has its own bard spoken. 

Oh, the tasseled corn for the whole broad land, 

For the Union no power can sever; 
But the buckeye brown for the Buckeye State 

Shall be our badge forever. 

Like twisted thorns are the waving plumes 

Of the buckeye blossom yellow. 
The buckeye leaf is an open hand 

To greet either foe or fellow ; 
And brown as the eyes of the antlered deer. 

Is the fruit from the branches shaken, 
Of the sturdy tree that in Buckeye hearts 

Can a loyal throb awaken. 
Oh, the tasseled corn for the whole broad land 

For the Union no power can sever; 
But the buckeye brown for the Buckeye State 

Shall be our badge forever. 

Oh, the stalwart oak and the bristling pine 

And the beech are a stately trio ; 
But dearer to me is the spreading tree 

That grows by the fair Ohio. 
The buckeye tree with its branches broad, 

Its burr with the brown fruit laden, 
Is the dearest tree that springs from the sod, 

To the Buckeye — man or maiden. 

Oh, the tasseled corn for the whole broad land 

For the Union no power can sever; 
But the buckeye brown for the Buckeye State 

Shall be our badge forever. 



12 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

TO THE OHIO RIVER. 

By William Dana Emerson. (1813-1891.)^' 

Flow on, majestic river! 

A mightier bids thee come, 
And join him on his radiant way, 
To seek an ocean home ; 
Flow on amid the vale and hill, 
And the wide west with beauty fill. 

I have seen thee in the sunlight, 

With the summer breeze at play, 
When a million sparkling jewels shone 
Upon thy rippled way; 
How fine a picture of the strife 
Between the smiles and tears of life ! 

I have seen thee when the storm cloud 

Was mirrored in thy face. 
And the tempest started thy white waves 
On a merry, merry race; 
And I've thought how little sorrow's wind 
Can stir the deeply flowing mind. 

I have seen thee when the morning 
Hath tinged with lovely bloom 
Thy features, waking tranquilly 
From night's romantic gloom; 
If every life had such a morn. 
It were a Messing to be born ! 



" Mr. Emerson was born in Marietta and graduated at the Ohio 
University, Athens, in 1833. After leaving college he taught school in 
Kentucky and in Illinois. Returning to Ohio he studied law and did a 
limited practice in Cincinnati. His inclinations being of a decided literary 
turn he turned his attention to literature. His brother brought out for 
him, in 1850, a volume of his poems. At his death it was found that 
he had left to his Alma Mater one thousand dollars, tlie income of which 
was to be prize money for poems written by the students. This fund 



Poems on Ohio, 13 

And when the evening heavens 

Were on thy canvas spread, 
And wrapt in golden splendor, Day 
Lay beautiful and dead; 
Thus sweet were man's expiring breath. 
Oh, who would fear the embrace of death! 

And when old Winter paved thee 
For the fiery foot of youth ; 
And thy soft waters underneath 
Were gliding clear as truth ; 
So off an honest heart we trace 
Beneath a sorrovv^ frozen face. ' ' 

And when thou wert a chaos 
Of crystals thronging on, 
Till melted by the breath of spring, ^ 

Thou bidst the steamers run; I '-. 

Then thousands of the fair and free 
Were swiftly borne along on thee. 

But now the sun of summer ? '' ' 

Hath left the sand-bars bright, 
And the steamer's thunder and his fires 
No more disturb the night ; 
Thou seemest like those fairy streams 
We sometimes meet with in our dreams. 



is known as the Emerson Prize Poem Fund. The following is a stanza 
taken from one of Mr. Emerson's poems, in which he recalls his 
college days : 

Sweet Athens ! the home of learning and beauty, 
How I long for thy hills and rich, balmy air ; 

For thy wide-spreading greens, smiling sweetly on duty, 
And the valley beneath, and the stream wending there ; 

On the North the high rock, on the South the lone ferry, 
The ville on the East and the mill on the West ; 

The lawn where the gravest at play hour were merry, 
; And the walks by the footstep of beauty made blest. 



14 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

How Spring has decked the forest ! 

That forest kneels to thee; 
And the long canoe and the creaking skiff, 
Are stemming thy current free; 
Thy placid marge is fringed with green, 
Save where the villas intervene. 

Again the rush of waters 

Unfurls the flag of steam, 

And the river palace in its pomp. 

Divides the trembling stream; 

Thy angry surges lash the shore 

Then sleep as sweetly as before. 

Then Autumn pours her plenty 

And makes thee all alive, 
With floating barks that show how well 
Thy cultured valleys thrive; 
The undressing fields yield up their grain, 
To dress in richer robes again. 

Too soon thy brimming channel 

Has widened to the hill, 
As if the lap of wealthy plain 
With deeper wealth to fill ; 
Oh, take not more than thou dost give, 
But let the toil worn cotter live. 

Oh, could I see thee slumber. 

As thou wast wont of yore, 
When the Indian in his birchen bark 
Sped lightly from the shore; 
Then fiery eyes gleamed through the wood, 
And thou wast often tinged with blood. 

The tomahawk and arrow, 

The wigwam and the deer. 
Made up the red man's little world, 

Unknown to smile or tear; 



Poems on Ohio. 15 

The spire, the turret and the tree 
Then mingled not their shades on thee. 

Now an hundred youthful cities 
Are gladdened by thy smile, 
And thy breezes sweetened through the fields, 
The husbandman beguile ; 
Those fields were planted by the brave, — 
Oh, let not fraud come near their grave. 

Roll on, my own bright river, 

In loveliness sublime; 
Through every season, every age, 
The favorite of Time ! 
Would that my soul could with thee roam, 
Through the long centuries to come ! 

I have gazed upon thy beauty, / 

Till my heart is wed to thee; . ^ 

Teach it to flow o'er life's long plain, ■ , 

In tranquil majesty; ' '' / i 

Its channel growing deep and wide — 
May Heaven's own sea receive its tide ! 



LA BELLE RIVIERE. 

By Anna Ricky Roberts. - (1827-1858.)^^ 

Beautiful river! on thy placid stream 

The Indian's light canoe is seen no more, 

Gliding as swiftly as a winged dream, 

Parting the waters with his flashing oar ; 

The hills slow rising from each wood-fringed shore, 
Are mirrored in thy calm pellucid wave. 



*^ Anna Ricky Roberts was a native of Cincinnati. In 1857 her poems 
appeared under the caption of "Forest Flowers of the West." She 
married Mr. Roberts in 1852 and went to Philadelphia to live. 



16 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Whose rippling pours a requiem as it rolls, 
In softened murmurs by the humble grave 

Of that brave hardy band who sleep unknown, 

Their resting place unmarked by monumental stone. 

And they, the rangers of the broad domain. 

Lords of the forest, hold no longer sway; 
Thy native children come not back again. 

All, all, have vanished like the dew away; 
Or, like the summer leaves that I have tossed 

Upon thy sun-lit wave, a moment seen 
Whirling along the current and then lost 

Leaving no lingering trace of what hath been, 
No mark to tell upon life's ceaseless river. 

That they have passed from its dark tide forever. 

Within thy noble forest now is heard 

The sound of ringing axe : the silence ne'er 
Was broken save by the sweet wild bird, 

Or gentle footfall of the timid deer. 
Before the bold, undaunted pioneer 

Had sought the land of promise, the far West, 
And made thy lonely shore his dwelling place. 

And reared a home within its fertile breast. 
And filled it with the sounds of busy life. 

With all its cares, its pleasures, and its strifes. 

Thy hills re-echo to the cheerful sound 

Of pealing church-bells and the merry hum 
Of busy hands and voices; and around 

Thy shores are gathered many who have come 
As wanderers seeking for a place of rest, 

A peaceful home upon the fertile soil, 
Where labor is with plenty ever blessed. 

Where wealth awaits the hardy hands that toil, 
And Freedom's sun with soul-inspiring beam, 

Gilds the fair bosom of thy noble stream. 



Poems on Ohio. 17 

OLD ERIE.^* 

Old Erie, thy billows have crumbled the shore, 

And scattered its frail shifting sands ; 
For ages thy life-freighted winds have blown o'er 

This dearest, this loveliest of lands. 

Though fierce be the wrath of this turbulent breast, 
When storms ride thy foam-crested wave. 

We love thy rude temptests ; we love thy calm rest ; 
Thy sweet benediction we crave. 

Our hero behold thou, this blest Eden land, 

The fruit of thy tenderest love. 
The years since thy shallop first touched our wild strand 

Are crowned with rich gifts from above. 

Gaze thou on old Erie, by Time's restless tide, 

Borne on until lost in the sea, 
Not thus were thy memory; that shall abide 

In this land of the brave and the free. 



LINES WRITTEN ON MOUNT LOGAN.^^ 

By William Edward Gilmore. (1824-1908.)^^ 

Ye who love only Nature's wildest form : 
The desolate rock, the desolating storm; 
The toppling, crackling avalanche of snow, 
Threat'ning with ruin all the plain below. 



" This poem was quoted in an historical address, delivered at the 
unveiling of a statue to Edward Paine, the founder of Painesville, in 
that city, July -, 1901. "Our hero behold thou," etc., no doubt refers 
to Gen. Paine. 

*® Mt. Logan is represented on the Ohio Seal, since it was this range 
of hills that suggested the device. It is near Chillicothe. 

^^ Colonel William Edward Gilmore was born at Chillicothe, Ohio. 
He attended Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, from 1839 to 1841, when he 
2 



18 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Where the poor peasant from the chilly soil, 
Wrings half a maintenance with double toil ; 
The beetling crag out- jutting from the shore, 
Where ocean chafes with everlasting roar, 
Mindless how oft the drowning sailor's wail 
Has mingled there with winter's whistling gale ; 
Who, with romantic affectation, call 
The dreary, lifeless deserts beautiful. 
Where bleaching bones of perished pilgrims lay 
Pointing the future caravan its way; 
Go, find such scenes where Libian sands are spread, 
Or huge Mont Blanc uprears its glittering head, 
Or Scylla frowns, the sailor's constant dread. 
But thou, O gentler tourist, who dost feel 
A purer pleasure o'er thy spirit steal. 
When softer landscapes open to thy view 
Their endless novelties of form and hue; 
Come wander here with pensive step and slow, 
Where sweet Scioto's silver waters flow, 
And smiling Nature owns how kind a God 
Gave man this bright and beautiful abode. 



took up the study of law. In 1843 he entered Lane Theological Seminary, 
from which he graduated in 1846, when he resumed the study of law, 
graduating from the Cincinnati Law School in 1848. He took an active 
interest in the anti-slavery contest. Upon the breaking out of the Civil 
War he organized no less than six companies of volunteers. His mind 
had a poetic bent and during the latter years of his life his poetic writ- 
ings were numerous and meritorious. He was a great reader and student 
of literature, and had at command a large fund of general information. 
Among his literary productions may be named "Life of Ohio's First 
Governor, Edward Tiffin," and innumerable political and historical sketches 
and fugitive poems contributed to various magazines and papers through- 
out his long life. 



Poems on Ohio. 19 

SUNSET ON THE OHIO RIVER. 

By Chambers Baird.^^ 



In the Valley. 

Aslant the glowing flood the sun-fires fall, 

Tingeing with mirrored gleam th' enthralling hills, 
Past whose fair slopes the tide streams as it wills, 

In winding flow, to lave that pageant wall 

Of cloud-furled sky, that far illuming all. 

Its gorgeous tinted splendor sheds, and fills 
The fervent landscape with rich-lustred thrills 

Of color lavished past the painter's call. 

Where flamed those altar fires, the hills lie browned ; 

Far down the dusk, the states no longer foes 
Stretch faintly, joined in shadow, to the west. 

And where flushed nature was with glory crowned, 
The sheltering heights upon the night's dim breast 

Rest outlined, hushed in infinite repose. 

II 

On the Heights. 

Above the many-voiced, dull murmuring world 

I stood, where from the upland's crowning crest 
I watched the evening splendors of the west 

In gorgeous, passionate pageantry unfurled ; 

And as the bursts of flame leapt up and curled 
About the horizon's dome, in my glad breast 
Broke forth such a glow of ecstasy unguessed, 

Whereby were life, death and all fate empearled. 



" Mr. Baird, a graduate of Harvard University, is an attorney at 
Ripley, Brown County, Ohio. The town of Ripley is situated in one 
of the most picturesque regions of the Ohio Valley. It was made famous 
in ante-bellum days as a station on the "Underground Railroad" and the 
home of Rev. John Rankin, a famous abolitionist. The home of Rankin, 
in which it is said a light burned for years as a beacon to escaping 
slaves on the Kentucky shore, is situated on the "Heights." 



20 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications.. 

All thrilled I gazed the while the radiance waned, 
Till 'gainst the paling sky's wan cirlet-rim 
The starlit night's oblivion lapped its brim ; 

But mirrored on mine eyes the glory gained, 

And on my soul had such blest rapture dawned, 
That I had almost known God's peace beyond. 



LAKE ERIE. 

By Ephraim Peabody. 



These lovely shores ! how lone and still 

A hundred years ago, 
The unbroken forest stood above, 

The waters dashed below : — 
The waters of a lonely sea, 

Where never sail was furled 
Embosomed in a wilderness 

Which was itself a world. 

A hundred years ! go back ; and lo ! 

Where, closing in the view. 
Juts out the shore, with rapid oar 

Darts round a frail canoe. — 
'Tis a white voyager, and see 

His prow is westward set 
O'er the calm wave : hail to thy bold 

World seeking bark, Marquette ! 

The lonely bird that picks his food 

Where rise the waves, and sink, 
At their strange coming, with shrill scream 

Starts from the sandy brink; 
The fish-hawk hanging in mid-sky 

Floats o'er on level wing 
And the savage from his covert looks 

With arrow on the string. 



Poems on Ohio. 21 



A hundred years are past and gone 

And all the rocky coast 
Is turreted with shining towns, 

An empire's noble boast. — 
And the old wilderness is changed 

To cultured vale and hill ; 
And the circuit of its mountains 

An empire's numbers fill. 



THE OHIO/« 

By Ephraim Peabody. 

Flow on, thou glorious river, 

Thy mountain-shores between, 

To where the Mexique's stormy waves 

Dash on savannahs green. 

Flow on, between the forests 

That bend above thy side, 

And 'neath the sky and stars that lie 

Mirrored within thy tide. 

High in the distant mountains 

Thy first small fountains gush, 

And down the steep, through the ravine, 

In shallow rills they rush; 

Till in the level valley 

To which the hills descend. 

Converging from the summits, meet 

The thousand rills, and blend. — 

And soon the narrow mountain stream 

O'er which a child might leap, 

Holds on its course with a giant's force, 

In a channel broad and deep. 



"This poem appeared in Gallagher's "Poetical Literature of the 
West/ 1841. 



22 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

High up among the mountains 

The fisher boy is seen, 

Alone and lounging in the shade 

Along the margin green ; 

And not a sound disturbs him, save 

A squirrel or a bird, 

Or on the autumn leaves, the noise 

"Of dropping nuts is heard." — 

But here, the city crowds upon 

The freedom of the wave. 

And many a happy village bank 

Thy flowing waters lave. 

Upon thy tranquil bosom, floats 

An empire's burdened keels. 

And every tributary stream 

An empire's wealth reveals. 

Flow on, thou mighty river! 

High-road of nations, flow ! 

And thou shalt flow, when all the woods 

Upon thy sides are low. 

Yes, thou shalt float eternally. 

Though on thy peopled shore. 

The rising town and dawning state 

Should sink to rise no more. 

Though on the hills were heard no more 

A human step or sound, — 

Though they were a dead empire's mound; 

Still onward shall thy current be. 

Thou image of eternity 

Onward and onward to the sea. 



Poems on Ohio. 23 

THE BUCKEYE TREE. 

Dr. William H. Venable. 

''When blue birds glance the sun-lit wing, 
And pipe the praise of dancing spring, 
Like some gay sylvan prince, and bold, 
The Buckeye dons his plumes of gold. 

When truants angle in the sun, 
Or roam the wood with dog and gun, 
How tuneful sounds the honeyed tree. 
Hummed round by the melodious bee. 

When boisterous Autumn dashes down 
Imperial Summer's rustling crown. 
Beneath the scattered spoils we find 
The polished nut in bronzen rind. 

The Buckeye brooms, in times of yore. 
Swept for the dance the puncheon floor ; 
The backwoods beaux, hilarious souls, 
Quafifed sangaree from Buckeye bowls. 

The friendly Buckeye leaves expand. 
Five-fingered, like an open hand, 
Of love and brotherhood the sign — 
Be welcome ! What is mine is thine. 

Historic, now, and consecrate. 

The emblem of a loyal state, 

A symbol and a sign, behold 

Its banners green, its plumes of gold. 

Ohio's sons ! their bugles sang. 

Their sabers flashed, their muskets rang, 

Forever unto freedom true. 

The Buckeye boys in Union blue ! 



24 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

OHIO BEAUTIFUL.2^ 
By Osman C. Hooper. (1858-) 

In beauty Ohio stands cut from the forest, 
Early rough-hewn by the pioneer's blade, 

But chiseled at length to majestic completeness. 
Glorious home-land in sun or in shade. 

Once clad in the green of the forest primeval, 
The Indians trod o'er her hills and her vales, 

And sang in the rapturous joy of the morning 

A song which the breeze taught the westering sails. 

O'er sea and o'er land to thy beautiful river, 

E'er by the beckoning benison led. 
The home-seekers come, bringing virtue and vigor 

Meet for the riches thy bounty had spread. 

They felled and they builded, they spun and they planted, 
And lo ! rose a State from the wild-wood austere. 



"" These beautiful words have been set to music by Dr. R. D. Book, 
Corning, O. 

Osman Castle Hooper was born at Alexandria, Licking County, O., 
April 10, 1858, son of Richard and Sarah Celestia Castle Hooper. Edu- 
cated in public schools of Alexandria and Columbus and at Denison 
University, where he graduated with the A. B. degree in 1879. He be- 
gan newspaper work the following year as telegraph editor of the Co- 
iumbus Dispatch and has in subsequent years served in reportorial and 
editorial capacities on that paper, the Columbus News and the Cincin- 
nati Enquirer. On the Dispatch he conducted for a number of years, in 
connection with other work, a department of paragraphic comment, a 
feature of which was a daily bit of verse. He is now editorial writer 
of the Dispatch, member of the board of trustees of his Alma Mater, 
member of the Columbus Y. M. C. A. board of directors and other semi- 
public bodies. A few of his verses have been collected and published 
under the title, "The Joy of Things." In 1880 he married Miss Josephine 
Babbitt, of Columbus. They have one son, Richard Babbitt Hooper. 



Poems on Ohio. 25 

A lake is her crown and her path-way a river, 
And e'er as she walks she is scattering cheer. 

Her fire-sides have given new^ strength to the nation — 
Men for the mightiest problems of peace, 

And w^ar heroes, leading their armies to victory, 
Giving to bond-men a gracious release. 

An empire wdthin a vast empire of free-men, 
Ohio stands binding the east and the west. 

Her sturdy sons striving and ever achieving 

For God and our country the highest and best. 

CHORUS 

Ohio, Ohio ! Fair home-land wx love thee ! 

Millions of glad voices give thee acclaim ! 
Rich are thy fields and the sky blue above thee ! 

Ohio, forever enduring thy fame. 



ERIE. 

By Rev. L. B. Gurley.-^ (1804-1880.) 

Bright lake roll on thy silvery tide. 

Thy voice is swTCt to me. 
How oft w^e've wandered by thy side, 

And heard thy minstrelsy. 



^ Rev. L. B. Gurley, pioneer poet and preacher, wrote much on the 
legends and early history of North-western Ohio. He was born in Nor- 
wich, Connecticut, of Irish descent. Some of his poems are, "To San- 
dusky Plains," "Mission of the Spring," "Indian Summer on the San- 
dusky Plains," "The Fair Fugitive," "The Setting Stars," "Dred Scott."^ 
A full account of Rev. Gurley's life with extracts from many of his 
poems is found in Volume X, Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publica- 
tions, by Rev. N. B. C. Love, D. D. 



26 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

I love thy loudest thunderings, 

When deepest tones are given, 
Thou mighty harp of thousand strings, 
Swept by the hand of Heaven. 

Thy breezes fanned my youthful cheek, 
Thy waters cooled my brow, 

IVe heard thee in anger speak, 
And in thy murmurs low. 



OUR WESTERN LAND.^^ 

By William D. Gallagher. 



Ohio-peh-he-le !^^ — Peek-han-ne !^* The pride 
Of the land where thy waters, O-pe-le-chen ^^ glide. 
Though thy vales and the hills in the distance, that loom 
Till they're part of the azure, or lost in the gloom, 
Have long been the homes of the noble and brave, 
Whose proud halls are built on the Indian's grave, — 
Yet seldom the poet has made thee his theme, 
Ohio-peh-he-le ! all beautiful stream ! 

And he who now thy name would twine 

With his and poesy's and wed 
Them thus, knows not that e'er his line, 

Save on thy borders shall be read. 
Yet on thy shore his boyhood dreams 

Have passed, and manhood's truths come on ; 
And here have flashed those glorious gleams 
Of Phantasit, whose light has won 



^'This poem appeared in Gallagher's "Erato," Number II, published 
in 1835. 

""Ohio-peh-he-le" — very white frothy water. 



** "Peek-han-ne," deep and white stream. 
* O-pe-le-chen, bright, shining. 



Poems on Ohio. 27 

His yearning heart from worldly things, 
And led it to the spirit's springs. 
And in the deep and solemn shades 

Hath he communed with those, whose page 
The deathless fore of song pervades — 

The master minds of many an age. 
And here have hopes been formed and crushed 

And wearying trials, ill repaid; 
And cheering tones in death been hushed ; 

And those who when his feet have strayed. 
Between him and his danger rushed, 

Are gone; and kindred have been laid 
Forever in the silent tomb. 

Fair stream ! I love thee — and thy gloom 
Of forest and thy strength of soil — 

Thy wild and beetling rocks, that, flung 
Unfashioned from Creation's hand. 
Loom in mid-heaven — where eagles toil. 

And build and rear their screaming young, 
By earthquakes rocked, by tempest fanned ! 

H. 

Ohio-Pechen ! ^^ Belle Riviere \^' 
For beauty none with thee compare. 
How bright thou first break'st on the view, 

Where dark Monongah's waters woo : 

Fair Alleghany's, wild and free. 
Behold the clear stream's coquetry! 
The more 'tis wooed and pressed, the more 
It feigns to love its pebbly shore; 
Retreating still, but still so fair, 
Much may the wooing water dare, 
That they the self same bed may share. 



^ "Ohio-pe-chen," it is of a white color. 
^ "Belle-riviere," beautiful river. 



.28 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Still strives she that it may not be ; 

And still retreats the embrace to flee 
Of the dark wooer : But anon 

They mingle and together run — 

The same, the wooer and the won. 

Thus ye may see a bashful bride, 

Consenting half, and half denying; 

Now looking love, and now aside 

Turning her melting eyes ; now flying 

Away, all loveliness and grace ; 

But careful still her blushing face 

To turn to him she hath forsaken — 
Full willing soon to be o'ertaken; 

And when she is pursued and caught, 

A thread will hold her — as it ought ! 

Now, modest maiden-struggles vain, 

She blushing yields, until the twain 

Are one, even as these mingled waves. 

Which part but at their ocean graves. 

III. 

But here, thy beetling cliffs among, 
Ohio, pause we in our song. 
Who muses by the wooing wave? 
His feet are on the Scotchman's grave! 
Here highland clans and savage hordes. 

With giant strength have madly striven. 

And Gaul's and Britain's gory swords 

Home to the hilt been driven. 
Oh, Caledonia ! blood that runs 

In breast of thine, is free and strong; 

And here thy kilted highland sons, 

With gallant Grant,^^ fought well and long 



'^^ Eight hundred men, consisting of English Highlanders and Vir- 
ginians, under the command of Major James Grant, fought a large body 
-of French and Indians, Sept. 22, 1758. in the attempt to capture Fort 
Du Quesne. 



Poems on Ohio. 29 



Scorning to yield — too brave to turn — 
The spirit theirs of Bannock-burn ! 
Sword, war-club, bayonet and knife, 
Were busy in that fearful strife. 
There was no quarter — "Head for head !" 
And many a kilt and plume were red; 
And many a clansman slept in death — 
His blood upon a stranger's heath. 
And thou Virginia ! bravely shared 

Thy dauntless hearts the bloody fray; 
And fiercely fought and well, and fared 

As soldiers must on battle day; 

The night came and around they lay! 



IV. 

Long, years, since then have come and passed, 
Where are thy forests dark and vast. 

And frowning battlements, Du Quesne? 
Those long have to the earth been cast; 

For thee, we look in vain. 
AVhere frowned the fort in those old days, 

Now stand the halls of industry; 
Nor trench nor picket mets the gaze — 

But the proud structures of the free. 

Where now the Indian do ye see. 
Or Frenchman ? Gone — forever gone, 

Gaul, savage, fort and skulking-tree ! 
And are there now no relics ? None ! 
Their works? There's ''not a stone on stone!" 
Virginian — • Briton — Highlander — 
Where is their honored sepulcher? 
Around ! Ye'll sometimes find a bone ! 

Their Names? They never have been writ! 
The dust we stand upon has one — 

And they are part of it! 



30 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Yet many a brave one hither came, 

To sell his heart's blood for renown ; 

And dreaming of a warrior's fame, 

Unshrinking to the grave went down : 

Yet, even now, yon flower ye see, 

Knows more of them by far, than we. 



V. 

But not alone doth Grandeur mark, 
With towering hill and forest dark, 

And cloud-capp'd cliff, thy shores, fair stream; 
Rich groves and sunny isles are thine, 
And quiet vales thy borders line; 
And on thy shores the fruitful vine, 
And ever fragrant eglantine, 
With hazel, haw, and thorn combine 

To form enchanting bow'rs which dream 
Of Poet never hath surpass'd. 
And in thy pearly waves are glass'd 

Tallest and most gigantic trees, 

And skies as fair as Italy's. 
The land thou wind'st through has not 
A mountain pass or prairie plat. 

Where daring deeds have not been done; 
And every dark and wooded dell 
Some thrilling tale of blood can tell : 
There a heroic father fell, 

And here his dauntless son; 
And there, perhaps, a rod away, 
The fettered wife and mother lay — 

Her infant playing by her side. 
And she hath seen her first-born slain, 
And heard the hatchet cleave his brain. 
And watched his heart's blood flow like rain — 

Her first-born and her pride. 
And heard her lord's loud battle-cry. 
And seen him bravely do and die. 



Poems on Ohio. 31 

Spartan ! though to the earth overthrown, 
Still waged he the unequal fight — 
Still aimed the deadly fire aright — 
And when he felt death's gathering night 
Come, dark and chill and cloud his sight 

Fell back, and died without a groan. 
Now seiz'd the savage her prattling child ! 
It look'd in his tattoo'd face and smiled 

The baubles and vermil there to see. 
Loud shrieks that mother and rends her hair — 
Then shivers the thongs that bind her there, 
And begs the savage her child to spare; 
But, grinning, he swings it in the air. 

And dashes it 'gainst a tree ; 
Then lays it quivering, at her feet. 

A frantic moment 'tis closely prest. 

Unconsciously, to her yearning breast ; 
But its little heart has ceas'd to beat. 
And her streaming hair is its winding sheet. 

How wild has grown that mother's eye! 
Her limbs fail and her brain reels round; 
Senseless she falls upon the ground; 
A moment and again she's bound. 

Up, mother! they must fly! 
Up, up, they cannot longer stay, 
And thou with them must haste away. 

Too weak ? Then thou must die ! 
A tomahawk swings in the silent air, 
A dark hand clenches her tangled hair. 
The crown of her head is bloody and bare. 
And, dying, alone they leave her there. 
But hark! in that dell a deathshot rings. 
And aloft the hindmost savage springs, ^ 

And falls like a stone to the ground; 
But his comrades fear the vengeance near — 
And away, away like the startled deer 
When the baying pack are close in the rear. 

O'er rock and log they bound. 



32 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Their foe was but one, a younger son, 

Who had skulked when the havoc was first begun ; 

He had rifle — but loads, alas, but one. 

And he saw his father and brother slain, 

And the dead babe thrown at its mother's feet;. 
And heard her plead for mercy in vain. 
And soon beheld her fettered again, 

Death but not mercy, to meet, 
A knife gleam'd red on his straining eye. 
And he saw her scalp lock waved on high : 
Then he swore that the last who lingered should die 

Of that dark and murderous band. 
They fly; but the proud scalp-bearer is still 
But half way up the bordering hill : 
Young hero, now ! The trigger he drew ; 
The glen was filled with his wild halloo; 
And away the cowardly Indians flew, 

As if hundreds were at hand. 
But he who had led those murderers on. 
And paused for the scalp when his band were gone, 
Lay cold and stiff in that bloody dell — 
And the panther found him where he fell. 

VL 

Ohio-Pechen ! — Glorious river ! 
Thy children's fame shall last forever. 
There's scarce a rod along thy shore. 
Where grappled not in days of yore, 
The warrior or the Sagamore, 

And iron-sinewed pioneer. 
Seldom have foes so madly striven; 
Quarter was neither asked nor given; 
The white man placed his trust in heaven; 

The Indian knew not fear. 
And in thy solemn shades have met 
The war-club and the bayonet. 



Poems on Ohio. 33 



At rise of sun ; and at the set, 
Savage and soldier struggled yet 

In merciless border war. 
Who conquered ? Look around the scene ! 
The wigwam nowhere dots the green; 
The Indian's days of power, have been — 

The white man's, are. 

VII. 

Old days are gone; and passed away 
All traces of the Indian's way. 
Far other scenes surround us now; 
In quiet vale, on mountain brow. 

And far retired in shady glen, 
Behold the dwelling of the free — 
A race who scorn to bend the knee, 
Save at the shrine of God it be: 

Fair women and brave men. 



THE ISLANDS OF ERIE.^^ 

By Robert R. McMeens, M. D. (1820-1862.) 

The Islands of Erie arrayed in full dress, 

Enrobe the lake scene with strange loveliness, 

As gorgeously decked in bright verdure they lie, 

In the soft mellow haze of the still autumn sky. 

No more brilliant gems though lauded they be 

Ever gleamed 'mid the groups of the old Grecian sea. 



" This poem was read at Put-in-Bay, September 10, 1858, on the 
anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie. Four of the survivors of the 
battle were present. Dr. McMeens, the author, was a practicing physician 
in Sandusky City. At the outbreak of the Civil War he became a surgeon 
in the Union Army and died at Perryville, Kentucky, in the discharge of 
his duty. This poem was published in Lang's History of Seneca County, 
(1880). 

3 



34 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

They circle the storm-brewing gates of the west 
To soothe the "mad spirit" of Erie to rest 
And lend their slight forms to the rage of the sea 
To shelter the storm-tossed in succoring lee; 
Or, like sentinels, seem to be pointing the way 
To the harboring arms of bold 'Tut-in-bay. " 

When the winds breathless sleep in their caverns of peace, 

How sylph-like they sit on the lake's lucent face, 

Or mirrored in beauty on crimson dyed wave 

When the sun silent sinks in her gold-tinted grave, 

And the purple horizon depends as a shroud, 

Of a tapestried mantle, in folds of rich cloud. 

Then deep'ning so gently upon the pale glow, 

So somber and sad, scarcely seeming to know 

When the last flitting ray of fading twilight 

Merges in darkness and death gloom of night. 

Oh! Islands of Erie, how many a scene 
Of shipwreck and battle around you have been! 
How many a gallant young hero went down 
When Perry and sailors won glorious renown! 
You stand as proud monuments over the dead, 
Who sleep at your feet in their coffinless bed. 
While the winds shriek or whisper a requiem sigh, 
And the waves join in murmuring a fond lullaby, 
And the mariner gliding along by your side 
Recounts all their deeds with emotions of pride. 

Oh, Islands of beauty, on Erie's broad breast 
That smile in the sunshine like havens of rest ; 
Or when the storm-god in his wrath wildly raves, 
Like ''sisters" of mercy hang o'er the waves, 
E'er bloom in your freshness as lovely as now, 
To enrapture the eye and make the heart glow. 



Poems on Ohio. 35 

PRE-HISTORIC RACE.3« 

By William Cullen Bryant. 

"As o'er the verdant waste I guide my steed, 

Among the high rank grass that sweeps his sides, 

The hollow beating of his footsteps seems 

A sacrilegous sound. I think of those 

Upon whose rest he tramples. Are they here — 

The dead of other days? And did the dust 

Of those fair solitudes once stir with life 

And burn with passion? Let the mighty mounds 

That overlook the rivers, or that rise 

In the dim forest crowded with old oaks, 

Answer. A race, that has long since passed away. 

Built them ; a disciplined and populous race 

Heaped with long toil, the earth, while yet the Greek 

Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms 

Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock 

The glittering Parthenon. These ample fields 

Nourished their harvests ; here their herds were fed, 

When haply by their stalls the bison lowed 

And bowed his maned shoulder to the yoke 

Till twilight blushed and lovers walked and wooed 

In a forgotten language, and old tunes. 

From instruments of unremembered form, 

Upon the soft winds a voice. The red man came — 

The roaming hunter — tribes warlike and fierce, 

And the mound builders vanished from the earth.'* 



^ Selection from "The Prairies." 



36 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

AN APOSTHROPHE TO A MOUND, 

By Moses Brooks. ^^ (1789-?) 

Here stood a mound erected by a race 

Unknown in history or poet's song, 
Swept from the earth nor even left a trace 

Where the broad ruin rolled its tide along. 

No hidden chronicle these piles among, 
Or hieroglyphic monument survives 
To tell their being's date or whence they sprung — 
Whether from Gothic Europe's "northern hives", 
Or that devoted land where the dread siroc drives. 

Mysterious pile ! O say for what designed ? 

Have flaming altars on thy summit shone? 
Have victims bled by pious rites consigned, 

T' appease the wrath above and thus atone 

For sinful man to the eternal throne? 
Momentous monitor of mortal woe ! 

Thou dost proclaim a nation lost unknown, 
Smitten from earth by some tremendous blow, 
Which but a God could give and but the Omniscient kno*v. 

Hill of the Lord ! Where once perchance of yore 

Sincere devotion woke her pious strain ; 
Mountain of God ! did prostrate man adore 
And sing hosannas to Jehovah's name, 
While sacrifices fed thine altar's flame? 
But when stern war his sanguine banner spread 
And strewed the earth with many a warrior slain. 
Didst thou become a charnel of the dead 
Who sought imperial sway, or for fair freedom bled? 



^ Mr. Brooks was for many years an active lawyer of Cincinnati. 
He was born at Oswego, New York, and came to Cincinnati in 1811. 
On account of declining health he gave up his profession in 1830 and 
became a merchant. He was a contributor to the Western Souvenir and 
The Ladies' Repository. 



Poems on Ohio. 37 

Yes; here may some intrepid chieftain He, 

Some Alexander great as PhiHp's son, 
Whose daring prowess bade the Persian fly 

Before the conquering arm of Macecion ; 

Or greater still, some former Washington, 
Whom glory warmed and liberty inspired ! 
Who for this hemisphere perchance had won 
His country's freedom, and deplored, expired, 
Bathed by a nation's tears, beloved, revered, admired. 



TO AN INDIAN MOUND. 

By Thomas H. Shreve.-- (1808-1853.) 

Whence, and why art thou here, mysterious mound? 

Are questions which man asks but asks in vain ; 
For o'er thy destinies a night profound, 

All rayless and all echoless, doth reign. 
A thousand years have passed like yesterday, 

Since wintry snows first on thy bosom slept, 
And much of mortal grandeur passed away, 

Since thou hast here thy voiceless vigils kept. 

While standing thus upon thy oak-crowned head. 

The shadows of dim ages long since gone 
Reel on my mind, like spectres of the dead. 

While dirge-like music haunts the wind's low moan. 
From out the bosom of the boundless past 

There rises up no voice of thee to tell : 
Eternal silence like a shadow vast 

Broods on the breast and shrouds thine annals well. 



^^ Thomas H. Shreve was a Quaker, whose later years were spent 
upon the editorial staff of the Louisville Journal. He was engaged in 
literary work of various sorts also in Cincinnati. An extensive sketch of 
his life is given by William Davis Gallagher, in Coggeshell's "Poets and 
Poetry of the West." 



38 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Didst thou not ante-date the rise of Rome, 
Egyptia's pyramids and Grecian arts? 

Did not the wild deer here for shelter come 

Before the Tyrrhene sea had ships or marts? 

Through shadows deep and dark the mind must pierce 
Which glances backward to that ancient time; 

Nations before it fall in struggles fierce 

Where human glory fades in human crime. 

Upon the world's wide stage full many a scene 

Of grandeur and of gloom, of blood and blight 
Hath been enacted since thy forests green 

Sighed in the breeze and smiled in morning's light. 
Thou didst not hear the woe nor heed the crime 

Which darkened earth through ages of distress; 
Unknowing and unknow^n, thou stood'st sublime 

And calmly looked upon the wilderness. 

The redman oft hath lain his aching head, 

When weary of the chase, upon thy breast ; 
And as the slumberous hours fast o'er him fled 

Has dreamed of hunting-grounds in climes most blest. 
Perhaps his thought ranged through the long past time, 

Striving to solve the problem of thy birth. 
Till wearied out with dreams, dim though sublime. 

His fancy fluttered back to him and earth. 

The eagle soaring through the upper air 

Checks his proud flight and glances on thy crest, 
As though his destiny were pictured there 

In the deep solitude that wraps thy breast. 
Thy reign must soon be o'er — the human tide 

Is surging round thee like a restless sea ; 
And thou must yield thy empire and thy pride 

And, like thy builders, soon forgotten be. 



Poems on Ohio. 39 

THE OLD MOUND.33 
By Charles A. Jones. (1815-1851.)^^ 

Lonely and sad it stands : 

The trace of ruthless hands 
Is on its side and summit, and around 
The dwellings of the white man pile the ground ; 

And curling in the air, 
The smoke of thrice a thousand hearths is there : 

Without, all speaks of life, — within, 

Deaf to the city's echoing din, 
Sleep well the tenants of that silent Mound, 
Their names forgot, their memories unrenown'd. 

Upon its top I tread. 

And see around me spread 
Temples and mansions, and the hoary hills. 
Bleak with the labor that the coffer fills. 

But mars their bloom the while, 
And steals from nature's face its joyous smile: 

And here and there, below 

The stream's meandering flow 
Breaks on the view ; and westward in the sky 
The gorgeous clouds in crimson masses lie. 

The hammer's clang rings out, 

Where late the Indian's shout 
Startled the wild-fowl from its sedgy nest, 
And broke the wild deer's and the panther's rest. 



^ In the western part of Cincinnati, demolished years ago by a vandal 
curiosity, near what is now the junction of Fifth and Mound Streets, 

•^ Charles A. Jones was born in Philadelphia. When a mere child 
he came to Cincinnati. When yet a young man he gave promise of 
much literary distinction, but because of pecuniary conditions he was 
driven into the practice of law. He contributed much to various period- 
icals of the time, including the Western Literary Journal, and the Cin- 
cinnati Gazette. In his writings he deals exclusively with what were then 
western ideals and characters. He takes his subjects from the rivers, 
the mounds, the Indian heroes and pioneers of the Ohio and Mississippi 
Valleys. 



40 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

The lordly oaks went down 
Before the ax — the cane-brake is a town : 
The bark canoe no more 
Glides noiseless from the shore; 
And, sole memorial of a nation's doom 
Amid the works of art rises this lonely tomb. 

It too must pass away: 

Barbaric bands will lay 
Its holy ruins level with the plain 
And rear upon its site some goodly fane. 

It seemeth to upbraid 
The white man for the ruin he has made. 

And soon the spade and mattock must 

Invade the sleepers' buried dust 
And bare their bones to sacrilegious eyes, 
And send them forth some joke-collector's prize. 



A WALK AT SUNSET.3^ 

By William Cullen Bryant. 

"Then came the hunter's tribes, and thou didst look, 
For ages, on their deeds in the hard chase, 

And well fought wars ; green sod and silver brook 
Took the first stain of blood ; before thy face 

The warrior generations came and passed. 

And glory was laid up for many an age to last. 

Now they are gone, gone as thy setting blaze 

Goes down the west, while night is pressing on 

And with them, the old tale of better days, 

And trophies of remembered power, are gone. 

Yon field that gives the harvest, where the plough 

Strikes the white bone, is all that tells their story now. 



The last four stanzas from "The Prairies." 



Poems on Ohio. 41 

I stand upon their ashes, in thy beam, 

The offspring of another race I stand 
Beside a stream they loved, this valley stream; 

And where the night-fire of the quivered band 
Showed the gray elms by fits and war-song sung 
I teach the quiet shades the strains of this new tongue. 

Farewell ! but thou shalt come again — thy light 

Must shine on other changes, and behold 
The place of the thronged city, still as night — 

States fallen — new empires built upon the old — 
But never shalt thou see these realms again 
Darkened by boundless groves, and roamed by savage men." 



INDIAN GRAVES. 

By Benjamin S. Parker.^^ (1833-) 

All along the winding river 

And adown the shady glen, 

On the hill and in the valley, 

Are the graves of dusky men. 

We are garrulous intruders 

On the sacred burying grounds 

Of the Manitou's^^ red children, 

And the builders of the mounds. 

Here the powah and the sachem, 
Here the warrior and the maid, 

Sleeping in the dust we tread on, 
In the forests we invade, 



^ Benjamin S. Parker was born in Henry County, Indiana, tie 
spent his boyhood and early manhood on a farm, enjoying common-school 
advantages. Dr. Venable says of him: "Benjamin S. Parker is a good 
poet and a good man." He is the author of several books and the chief 
editor of the volume "Poets and Poetry of Indiana." He is now in his 
seventy-seventh year and resides at New Castle, Indiana. 

"'' "Manitou," the Indian word for Great Spirit. 



42 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Rest as calmly and as sweetly, 

As the mummied kings of old, 

Where Cyrene's marble city^^ 

Guards their consecrated mould. 

Through the woodland, through the meadow, 

As in silence oft I walk. 
Softly whispering on the breezes. 

Seem to come the redman's talk ; 

Muttering low and very sweetly 
Of the good Great-Spirit's love 

That descends like dews of evening, 
On his children from above. 

Still repeating from the prophets, 
And the sachems gray and old, 

Stories of the south-west Aiden,^^ 
Curtained all around with gold : 

Where the great and good Sowanna^*^ 
Calleth all his children home, 

Through the hunting grounds eternal, 
Free as summer winds to roam; 

Singing wildest songs of wailing 
For the dead upon their way, 

On the four-days' journey homeward*^ 
To the realms of light and day; 

Chanting soft and gentle measures, 
Lays of hope and songs of love, 

Now like shout of laughing waters. 
Now like cooing of the dove. 



^ "Gyrene's marble city," a Greek colony in Northern Africa, founded 
A. D. 632. 

^® "South-west Aiden." Aiden is the fanciful spelling of Eden. The 
Indian's idea of the land of the hereafter was that it was in the south-west. 

*""Sowanna/' the All-Father. 

*^ "Four days' journey." The Indian believed that it took the soul 
four days to make the journey from this world to the spirit world. 



Poems on Ohio. 43 



Then, anon, their feet make echo 

To the war-song's fiendish howl. 

And revenge upon their features 
Sets his pandemonium scowl. 

See again the smoke is curling 
From the friendly calumet,*^ 

And the club of war is buried. 
And the star of slaughter set. 

But alas ! Imagination, 

Ever weaving dream on dream, 
Soon forgets the buried redman 

For some more congenial theme. 

But although the race is ended 

And forever over here. 
Let their virtues be remembered. 

While we fervently revere 

All their ancient burial places. 

Hill and valley, plain and glen ; 

Honor every sacred relic 

Of that fading race of men. 

Gitche-Manitou has called them 

From the chase and war-path here, 

To the mystic land of spirits, 

In some undiscovered sphere. 

In a land of light and glory. 

That no sachem's eye hath seen, 

Where the streams are golden rivers. 
And the forests ever green : 

Where the winter sun descending 
Sets the south-west sky aflame, 

Shall the Indian race be gathered 
In the great Sowanna's name. 



^"Calumet," the peace-pipe. 



44 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

THE INDIAN RELIC. 

By Luella J. B. Case. (?-i857.)*' 

Years ago was made thy grave, 
By Ohio's languid wave, 
When primeval forests dim 
Echoed to the wild bird's hymn ; 

From that lone and quiet bed, 
Relic of the unknown dead, 
Why art thou, a mouldering thing. 
Here amongst the bloom of spring? 

Violets gem the fresh, young grass; 
Softest breezes o'er thee pass ; 
Nature's voice in tree and flower 
Whispers of a waking hour; 

Village sounds below are ringing; 
Birds around thee joyous singing — 
Thou, upon this height alone 
No reviving power hast known ! 

Yet wert thou of human form. 
Once with all life's instincts warm, — 
Quailing at the storm of grief. 
Like the frailest forest leaf, — 

With a bounding pulse — an eye 
Bright'ning o'er its loved ones nigh, 
Till beneath this cairn of trust 
Dust was laid to blend with dust. 



43 



Luella J. Bartlett was a native of Kingston, New Hampshire. 
Her grandfather was one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. She was married in 1828 to Eliphalet Case, who came to 
Cincinnati in 1845 and became one of the editors and proprietors of the 
Cincinnati Enquirer, to which Mrs. Case contributed several poems on 
western themes. 



Poems on Ohio. 45 

When the redman ruled the wood, 
And his frail canoe yon flood, 
Hast thou held the unerring bow 
That the antlered head laid low? 

And in battle's fearful strife 
Swung the keen, remorseless knife ? 
Or, with woman's loving arm, 
Shielded helplessness from, harm? 

Silent ! Silent ! Naught below 
O'er thy past a gleam can throw. 
Or, in frame of sinewy chief, 
Woman, born for love and grief — 

Thankless toil or haughty sway 
Sped life's brief and fitful day. 
Like the autumn's sapless bough 
Crumbling o'er thee thou art now. 

Rest ! A young organic world. 

Into sudden ruin hurled, 

Casts its fragments o'er thy tomb, 

'Midst the woodlands' softened gloom,. 

Died those frail things long ago, 
But the soul no death can know — 
Rest ! Thy grave with silent preachings 
Humble hope and faith is teaching ! 

Rest ! Thy warrior tribes so bold 
Roam no more their forest old, 
And the thundering fire canoe 
Sweeps their placid waters througTJ 

Science ruled where Nature smiled : 
Art is toiling in the wild ; 
And their mouldering cairns alone 
Tell the tale of races gone. 



46 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Thus o'er Time's mysterious sea 
Being moves perpetually; 
Crowds of swift advancing waves 
Roll o'er vanished nations' graves ; 

But immortal treasures sweep 
■ Still unharmed that solemn deep ; — 

Progress holds a tireless way — 
Mind asserts her deathless sway. 



THE BLACK HAND.** 

By Hon. Alfred Kelley.*^ 

Have you ever seen the place where the murderer's hand 

Had instamped on the rock its indelible brand, 

A stain which nor water nor time could efface? 

'Tis a lonely deep glen, 'tis a wild roomy place 

Where the waters of Licking do silently lave. 

Where the huge frowning rock high impends o'er the wave, 

On whose pine-covered summit we hear the deep sigh 

When the zephyrs of evening so gently pass by. 

Here a generous savage was once doomed to bleed, 

'Twas the treacherous white man committed the deed. 

The hand of the murderer fixed the imprint, 

'Twas the blood of the victim that gave the black tint. 

A captive in battle the white man was made, 

And deep in the wilds is the victim conveyed. 

Here far from his kindred the youth must be slain, 

His prayers, his entreaties, his struggles are vain. 



** The Black Hand Narrows of the Licking is midway of Newark 
and Zanesville, along the electric car line. 

*^ Hon. Alfred Kelley was one of the commissioners that built the 
Ohio Canal, when the "Black Hand" was destroyed. See Ohio Magazine 
for November, 1906, for a version of the legend ; also the Ohio Archaeo- 
logical and Historical Society's Publications, Volume XHI. 



Poems on Ohio. 47 

The war dance is treading, his death song is singing, 

And the wild savage yells in his ears is a-ringing. 

The fire for the torture is blazing on high. 

His death doom is sealed, here the white man must die. 

The hatchet is raised, the weapon descends, 

But quick an old chief o'er the victim now bends. 

The hatchet he seizes and hurls to the ground. 

He raises the youth and his limbs are unbound. 

*'My son fell in battle," exclaims the old chief, 

*'But ye saw not my sorrow, tho' deep was my grief, 

And now shall the white man to me be a son, 

'Tis your chief that has said it — his will shall be done. 

A friend and a father to him will I prove, 

And me as a father and friend shall he love." 

Long years had passed by and peace had again 

Spread her soft balmy wings over mountain and plain, 

The red man and white man in friendship now meet, 

For the hatchet is buried deep under their feet. 

Long years had rolled on while the chief and his son 

Rich spoils from the forest together had won. 

Now loaded with furs from the far distant lake, 

The path to the traders together they take. 

Through the Narrows of Licink their pathway extends, 

Around the huge rock on its margin it bends, 

Where the shelf on its face scarce admits them to creep 

Along the dark front that impends o'er the steep. 

The chief with fatigue and with age now oppressed, ' • 

In the shade of the rock seeks a moment of rest; 

Here, lulled by the waters he closes his eyes, 

While his spirit communes with his friends in the skies. 

By his side the false white man now silently knelt. 

And carefully drawing his knife from his belt, 

With one deadly plunge of the murderous steel 

Reached the heart full of kindness — a heart that could feel. 

Then quick in the river the Indian was thrown 

Lest the tale should be told, lest the deed should be known. 

Oh, the shriek that he gave as he sank in the flood. 

As the waves eddied round him, deep-stained with his blood. 



48 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Oh, the glare of his eye as they closed o'er his head, 

While with hoarse sullen murmur they welcomed the dead. 

Rock told it to rock, oft repeating the sound, 

While shore answering shore still prolonged it around. 

That look and that sound touched the murderer's heart, 

With frenzy he reeled, and with shuddering start. 

His hand, while still reeking, with madness he placed 

On the rock and the blood stain could ne'er be effaced. 

'Twas avarice prompted the horrible deed, 

'Twas avarice doomed the kind chieftain to bleed. 

To form the safe towing-path, long since that day 

The face of the rock has been blasted away. 

Now the gay painted boat glides so smoothly along, 

Its deck crowned with beauty and cheerful with song. 

And the print of the Black Hand no longer is seen 

But the pine-covered summit is still evergreen. 

And still through the branches we hear the deep sigh 

Of the spirits of air as they sadly pass by. 

While in mournful procession they move one by one 

Still thinking with grief on the deed that was done. 



FAREWELL SONG OF THE WYANDOT INDIANS « 

By James Rankin.*^ 

Adieu to the graves where my fathers now rest ! 
For I must be going to the far distant west. 
I've sold my possessions ; my heart fills with woe 
To think I must leave them, Alas ! I must go. 



*® Rev. James Wheeler, the resident missionary, preached the fare- 
well sermon at the Old Mission Church, Upper Sandusky, in July, 1843, 
to the assembled Wyandot Indians, who were removed a few days later 
by the government to the west. Squire John Greyeyes, a converted 
Wyandot Indian, preached the sermon in the Wyandot language. Many 
present were moved to tears when Greyeyes bade adieu to the surround- 
ing scenes amid which his people had long lived. This pathetic scene was 



Poems on Ohio. 49 

Farewell ye tall oaks in whose pleasant green shade 
In childhood I sported, in innocence played; 
My dog and my hatchet, my arrows and bow, 
Are still in remembrance, Alas ! I must go. 

Adieu ye loved scenes, which bind me like chains, 
Where on m}^ gay pony I chased o'er the plains. 
The deer and the turkey I tracked in the snow. 
But now I must leave them, Alas ! I must go. 

Adieu to the trails which for many a year 
I traveled to spy the turkey and deer, 
The hills, trees and flowers that pleased me so 
I must now leave, Alas ! I must go. 

Sandusky, Tymochtee, and Brokensword streams,** 
Nevermore shall I see you except in my dreams, 
Adieu to the marshes where the cranberries grow 
O'er the great Mississippi, Alas ! I must go. 

Adieu to the roads which for many a year 
I travelled each Sabbath the gospel to hear, 
The news was so joyful and pleased me so. 
From hence where I heard it, it grieves me to go. 

Farewell my white friends who first taught me to pray 
And worship my Savior and Maker each day. 
Pray for the poor native whose eyes overflow, 
With tears at our parting, Alas ! I must go. 



the inspiration of the poem. The publications of the Ohio Archaeological 
and Historical Society contain a full history of the Wyandot Mission at 
Upper Sandusky. 

" James Rankin was a half-breed, his wife was a full-blood Wyan- 
dot. He was a farmer of intelligence and he lived on the Indian Reserva- 
tion, about half a mile east of Main Street, Upper Sandusky. He did not 
leave Upper Sandusky until a few years after the other Indians had gone. 

** Tymochtee and Brokensword are streams of Wyandot County. 

4 



50 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

THE INDIAN MAIDEN. 

A LEGEND. 

By Junius V. Jones. (1823 — ) 

I. 

In days long ago in the depths of the wild, 

When the woods rang with shouts of the joyous and free. 
An Indian maid, with the voice of a child. 

Fondly played on the banks of the pleasant Maumee. 

II. 

'Twas far in the past, in the long, long ago, 

In the days of her mirth and youthful glee, 
This Indian maiden was oft seen to row. 

On the moonlit waters of the pleasant Maumee. 

III. 
One pale moonlight night, near the smooth flowing river. 

She stole from her wigwam, with heart light and free, 
To meet her dark lover, with arrows and quiver. 

To rove on the banks of the pleasant Maumee. 

IV. 

Her bark moved in silence on the dark, flowing river, 

In search of her lover so anxious to see ; 
No thought for a moment that he would deceive her. 

As she stole near the banks of the pleasant Maumee. 

V. 

But hark ! what is that ? the pale face is coming ; 

She thought of her lover ; could she warn him to flee ? 
But the conflict was sharp, and the campfires were burning, 

Where her lover was slain, near the pleasant Maumee. 

VI. 
Each year just at autumn, when the green leaves are fading, 

When the soft winds are sighing o'er woodland and lea, 
The pale phantom ghost of this Indian maiden 

Is seen near the banks of the pleasant Maumee. 



Poems on Ohio. 51 

THE SPOTTED FAWN. 

By William Davis Gallagher. 

On Mahketewa's*^ flowery marge 

The red chief's wigwam stood, 
When first the white man's rifle rang 

Loud through the echoing wood; 
The tomahawk and scalping knife 

Together lay at rest; 
For peace was in the forest shades, 

And in the red man's breast. 

Oh, the Spotted Fawn ! 

Oh, the Spotted Fawn ! 
The light and life of the forest shades 
With the Red Chief's Child is gone. 

By Mahketewa's flowery marge 

The Spotted Fawn had birth. 
And grew, as fair an Indian girl 

As ever blessed the earth. 

She was the red chief's only child, 

And sought by many a brave ; 
But to the gallant young White Cloud, 
Her plighted troth she gave. 

From Mahketewa's flowery marge 

Her bridal song arose — 
None dreaming, in that festal night. 

Of near encircling foes ; 
But through the forest stealthily, 

The white men came in wrath; 
And fiery deaths before them sped 

And blood was in their path. 



** Mahketewa is the Indian name for Mill Creek, which flows into 
the Ohio River at Cincinnati. This ballad was written in 1845, and be- 
came at once immensely popular, being sung everywhere. 



52 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

On Mahketewa's flowery marge, 

Next morn, no strife was seen ; 
But a wail went up, where the young Fawn's blood 

And White Cloud's, dyed the green ; 
And burial in their own rude way, 

The Indians gave them there. 
While a low and sweet-toned requiem 

The brook sang and the air. 

Oh, the Spotted Fawn ! 

Oh, the Spotted Fawn ! 
The light and life of the forest shades 
With the Red Chief's Child is gone. 



THE LOGAN ELM.^^ 

[Written for The Ohio State Journal, 1872.] 

By Kate Brownlee Sherwood. 

"I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin 
hungry and I gave him not meat ; if ever he came cold and naked and 
I gave him not clothing. During the course of the last long and bloody 
v^^ar Logan remained in his tent an advocate for peace. Nay, such was 
my love for the whites, that those of my own country pointed at me 
as they passed by and said, 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had 
even thought to live with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel 
Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, cut off all the 
relatives of Logan ; not sparing even my women and children. There 
runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This 
called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I 
have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country I rejoice at the beams 
of peace. Yet, do not harbor the thought that mine is the joy of fear. 
Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save him life. 
Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not One." — Speech of Logan, Chief 
of the Mingoes, to Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, as reported in 
Thomas Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia." ^^ 



°° "A few miles below Circleville on the celebrated Pickaway Plains 
may be seen the knoll where Lord Dunmore concluded a treaty with the 
Scioto tribes. There, also, is standing the elm on the banks of Congo 



Poems on Ohio. 5S 

To-day we stand with wondering eyes, 
Beneath che elm where Logan stood ; 

The spirits of the spot arise, 

And clothe us with his silent mood. 

Our hearts are throbbing with his heart, 

His grief from every bosom rolls. 
We feel our life of his a part, 

The silent brotherhood of souls. 

For strangely like are human minds, 

Though cast in rude or polished die, 
And stronger than a fetter binds 

The common bond of sympathy. 

And whether good or whether ill, 

Our fellows who beside us fall, 
We feel the impulses that thrill, 

Their hearts — one Lord has made us all. 

We stand beneath the stately tree. 

And gaze adown the fertile plain; 
The years like trooping shadows flee. 

And all the vale is young again. 
The paw-paw ripens in the wood. 

The wild grape by the river side, 
And golden maize, the simple food 

Of simple people soon supplied. 

From every bend of wood and rill 

The wild men of the forest peer; 
The wily hunter, lithe and still 

Speeds swiftly on the startled deer. 



Creek, beneath which Logan, the Mingo chief, who had refused to appear 
in council, made his famous speech." 

" A full account of Dunmore's War is given in Vol. XI, Ohio 
Archaeological and Historical Publications. 



54 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Low circling round the sparkling spring 
The bison-covered tents are spread ; 

The children in their hammocks swing 
And catch the branches overhead. 

Fantastic figures dance around 

The campfires gleaming on the height, 

Or grouped in circles on the ground 
Flash picturesquely on the sight. 

And peace is in the silent shade, 

And peace is on the sunny plain ; 

The Indian lover woos his maid 

And twines for her the wampum chain. 

By right of birth the red men hold 

The broad green acres far and wide ; 

The pale face forged his titles bold 
And urges them with wanton pride. 

Already in the hunter's trail 

His conquering step is daily seen ; 

His plow is tearing up the vale. 
His ax is at the forest green. 

The crack of rifle loud and long 
Awakes the echo far and near; 

A terror strikes the feathered throng, 
The startled bison flee with fear. 

The moor fowl calls her scattered brood 
And screaming seeks the distant brake 

The shy, wild creatures of the wood 
Their flight to deeper coverts take. 

And, savage, from their broken lair. 
The tribes in common council meet ; 

The Shawnee and the Delaware 
And Mingo one another greet. 



Poems on Ohio. 55 

And now the fires burn angrily 

In all the sweet Scioto vale ; 
The warrior shouts his battle-cry 

And stealthy takes the great war trail. 

From burning-ground to burning-ground 
The dread death signals flash and fly; 

The victims to the fagots bound 
Shriek wildly in their agony. 

The brands are burning fierce and high 

Beside the settler's cabin piled; 
While dying in the door-way lie 

The pale-faced mother and her child. 

Again the tide of war is turned, 

The wild death wails of battle cease, 

The flaring torch is only burned 
To light the calumet of peace. 

The dread war-whoop has died away 
The poisoned arrow speeds no more ; 

The red man bows his head to-day 

To George the Third and Lord Dunmore. 

But see the Mingo chieftain stand 

With folded arms and haughty head ; 

His hopes are in the spirit land, 

His thought are with the sleeping dead. 

The cup of vengeance, once so sweet. 
Has proved a poisoned draught to be. 

Whose thousand ghastly horrors meet 
His eyes in shocking mockery. 

No life to love, no hope, no home, 

No tribal fame, no destiny; 
Forsaken through the world to roam 

Unmourned to meet eternity. 



56 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

A prophecy is on his soul — 

He stands the type of all his race 

Who wandering from pole to pole 
Shall find no safe abiding place. 

Upon their desolate path 

The tempest and the storm shall pour 
The fury of their gathered wrath 

Till earth shall know the race no more. 

* * * 

Thrice thirty times the summer's sheen 

Has turned the tasseled maize to gold, 

Thrice thirty autumn moons have seen 
It garnered safely in the hold. 

Thrice thirty times the oriole swung 
His hammock in the Elm high, 

Thrice thirty times his farewell sung 
Ere fleeing to a calmer sky. 

Yet, ever in the sun and shade 

The sad lament of Logan swells ; 

The brook that whispers through the glade 
Its story to the river tells. 

The murmuring morning breezes break 
It softly to the downy lea ; 

At eve the sighing branches wake 
A slow and solemn threnody. 

Live on, O Queen of forest trees ! 

O Elm, kissed by sun and dew ! 
Be thine the blandest morning breeze ! 

Be thine the skies of gladdest hue ! 

Live for the bard whose tales shall start 
Lays of diviner minstrelsy ! 

And wake within the human heart 
The finer chords of sympathy ! 



Poems on Ohio. 57 

Live on, O monument of him 

Whose scorned and shocked humanity 

Has stood a homily to dim 
Our boasted Christianity. 

Live on, while winter snows shall chill 

While summer heats shall scorch and burn. 

Till man to do his Father's will 
A broader charity shall learn. 



THE SHAWNEES AT WAPAKONETA.^^ 

an historical jingle. 1782-1832.^^ 

Anonymous. 

Astray in the wilderness driven from home, 
The Shawnees to Wapakoneta did roam. 
The banks of Auglaize had hardly been found 
Till Indian wigwams dotted the ground. 

Here Wapakoneta, the chief of his tribe, 
And Logan the friend of the white man, reside ; 
Blue Jacket, as well as The Turtle so brave, 
Selected such warriors no other tribe gave; 

Tecumseh, pretender, was stripped of his mask 
By Blackhoof whose judgment then found it no task; 
The Prophet, (the Wizard, the brother) bemeaned 
And by the same oracle proven a fiend. 



^^ The Shawnees settled in Auglaize County in 1782, and by the- 
treaties of Maumee, 1817, and St. Marys, 1818, they were to retain their 
reservations forever. But the United States government changed its mind 
in 1831 and they were driven to the westward. This ballad describes these 
events. Supt. J. D. Simpkins, of Newark, included it in his excellent 
History of Auglaize County (1901). 

'^ See Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. I, p. 293, for ex- 
planations of various references here. 



58 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Here Johnny and Brighthorn met Logan their friend — 
Not chief of the Mingoes — he had no "revenge", 
Here Johnson, the agent, selected the scout 
Most daring by far of any 'twere out. 

The hunter, the trapper, the trader met here 

To deal in the peltry long year after year. 

When Tarhe (The Crane) of Tecumseh had dreams, 

To him our old Blackhoof exposed the bad schemes. 

Here Winnemac, mighty, cruel Ottawa chief. 
Did come to appease but met with such grief ; 
He found he had roused such a terrible band 
That it soon happened he fell at their hand. 

Here Roundhead, the warrior, came Prophet to meet. 
Saying, 'Tf you're from Heaven I'll kneel at your feet"; 
But our chiefs again the illusions dispel 
Pronouncing the Prophet the agent of hell. 

Here Harvey the Quaker, the witch doth save 
By off'ring his life in place to the knave. 
Here Senecas, Wyandots, Delawares join 
The Ottawas, Shawnees (for) Samuels' coin. 

The fiercest and proudest of Indian bands — 
Their home was the center of Indian lands ; 
A council was here before a campaign — 
A council was here when over asrain. 



'■t>' 



In this capital town for some forty odd years. 
Old Samuel's Indian business appears, 
Jefferson, Harrison, Cass inscribe 
Some letters of note to this powerful tribe. 

Cincinnati, Detroit, where the courts were held — 
The judges through here to pass were compelled. 
When they stopped over night so pleased were the tribe 
The squaws and the bucks gave a dance on the side. 



Poems on Ohio. 59- 

\Ve took their last title by fraud and by force 

And left the whole tribe but little recourse : 

Wayweleapy, orator, sank in his tears 

While showing his tribe, ''There is fraud it appears." 

A committee was sent the Great Father to see 
At Washington city and make a last plea ; 
Wayweleapy, Parks, Duchouquet and Buck 
Joined Blackhoof and Perry to try for good luck. 

The journey was long and the roads there were none 
The weather was cold, — but little was done. 
So civilization had leveled the old 
To give to the new a firmer hold. 

Here witchcraft, polygamy, torture were stayed 
By the heart of the Quaker — not avarice's blade. 
Here Johnson, the agent, saw two thousand strong 
Reduced to eight hundred by sickness and wrong. 

Though their star it had set, they now wind again 
Near eight hundred miles across the great plain 
As gloomy and sad they turn from their home 
You'll glorify virtues, their faults will condone. 

The forest primeval has gone from us now, — 
The trails are all turned by the white man's plow. 
While our Liberty Bell was ringing their knell. 
It proclaimed to Progress, that ''All is well." 



^ Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

TECUMSEH.^* 

By Charles A. Jones. (1815-1851.) 

Where rolls the dark and turbid Thames 

His consecrated wave along 
Sleeps one, than whose, few are the names 

More worthy of the lyre and song; 
Yet o'er whose spot of lone repose 

No pilgrim eyes are seen to weep; 
And no memorial marble throws 

Its shadows where his ashes sleep. 
Stop, stranger ! there Tecumseh lies ; 

Behold the lowly resting place 
Of all that of the hero dies ; 

The Caesar — Tully — of his race ; 
Whose arm of strength and fiery tongue 

Have won him an immortal name, 
And from the mouths of millions wrung 

Reluctant tribute to his fame. 
Stop — for 'tis glory claims thy tear ! 

True worth belongs to all mankind ; 
And he whose ashes slumber here 

Though man in form was god in mind. 
What matter he was not like these 

In race and color — this the soul 
That marks man's true divinity — 

Then let not shame thy tear control. 
Art thou a patriot ? — so was he ! 

His breast was Freedom's holiest shrine; 
And as thou bendest there thy knee 

His spirit will unite with thine. 



" Tecumseh was born on the Mad River, about six miles from 
Springfield, in 1768. He was killed in the Battle of the Thames (Canada), 
October 5, 1813. See Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications for 
biography. 



Poems on Ohio. 61 

All that a man can give, he gave — 

His life — the country of his sires 
From the oppressor's grasp to save ; 

In vain — quenched are the nation's fires. 
Art thou a soldier? Dost thou not 

O'er deeds chivalric love to muse ? 
Here stay thy steps — what better spot 

Couldst thou for contemplation choose? 
The earth beneath is holy ground, 

It holds a thousand valiant braves. 
Tread lightly o'er each little mound, 

For they are no ignoble graves. 
Thermopylae and Marathon, 

Though classic earth can boast no more 
Of deeds heroic than yon sun 

Once saw upon this lonely shore, 
When in a gallant nation's last 

And deadliest struggle, for its own, 
Tecumseh's fiery spirit pass'd 

In blood, and sought its Father's throne. 
Oh, softly fall the summer dew. 

The tears of heaven, upon his sod. 
For he in Hfe and death was true 

Both to his country and his God; 
For oh, if God to man has given 

From his bright home beyond the skies 
One feeling that's akin to heaven, 

'Tis he who for his country dies. 
Rest, warrior, rest! Though not a dirge 

Is thine, beside the wailing Mast, 
Time cannot in oblivion merge 

The light thy star of glory cast ; 
While heave you high hills to the sky, 

While rolls yon dark and turbid river, 
Thy name and fame can never die — 

Whom freedom loves will live forever. 



62 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

A LAMENT FOR THE ANCIENT PEOPLE. 

By William J. Sperry.^^ (1823-1856.) 

Sad are fair Muskingum's waters, 
Sadly, blue Mahoning raves ; 
Tuscarawas' plains are lonely, 

Lonely are Hockhocking's waves. 
From where headlong Cuyahoga 

Thunders down its rocky way. 
And the billows of blue Erie 

Whiten in Sandusky's bay, 
Unto where Potomac rushes 

Arrowy from the mountain side. 
And Kanawha's gloomy waters 

Mingles with Ohio's tide; 
From the valley of Scioto, 

And the Huron sisters three. 
To the foaming Susquehanna 

And the leaping Genesee; 
Over hill and plain and valley — 

Over river, lake and bay — 
On the water — in the forest — 

Ruled and reigned the Seneca. 

But sad are fair Muskingum's waters. 

Sadly blue Mahoning raves ; 
Tuscarawas' plains are lonely. 

Lonely are Hockhocking's waves. 
By Kanawha dwells the stranger, 
Cuyahoga feels the chain, 
Strangers' ships vex Erie's billows 

Strangers plow Scioto's plain. 
And the Iroquois have wasted 

From the hill and plain away ; 



BS 



William J. Sperry was a native of the state of New York. He 
came to Ohio in 1840 as a student at Oberlin College. In Cincinnati he 
was associated with the newspaper press and as a writer took an active 
part in the anti-slavery agitation. He died in California. 



Poems on Ohio. 63 



On the waters, — in the valley, — 

Reigns no more the Seneca. 
Only by the Cattaraugus,^^ 

Or by lake Chautauqua's side, 
Or among the scanty woodlands 

By the Alleghany's tide — 
There, in spots, like sad oases. 

Lone amid the sandy plains. 
There the Seneca, still wasting, 

Amid desolation reigns. 



WENDING WESTWARD. 

By Dr. W. H. Venable. 

A new star rose in freedom's sky 
A hundred years ago; 

It gleamed on Labor's wistful eye, 
With magnetic glow. 

Hope and Courage whispered, Go, 
Ye who toil and ye who wait, 
Opportune, in star-light, lo, 
Open swings the People's gate ! 

Beyond the mountains and under the skies 

Of the Wonderful West your future lies; 
On the banks of the Beautiful River, 
By the shores of the Lakes of the North, 
There fortune to each will deliver 
His share of the teeming earth. 

Jocund voices called him from the dark 

Hesperian solitude, saying, Hark ! 

Hearken ye people ; come from the East, 

Come from the marge of the ocean, come ! 

Here in the Wilderness spread a feast, 

This is the poor man's welcome home ! 



■* Cattaraugus and Chautauqua refer to the New York Indian Reser- 
vations. 



64 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications, 

Hither with ax and plow, — 

(Carry the stripes and stars), 

Come with the faith and the vow 

Of patriots wearing your scars 
Like trophies upon the victorious breast, 

Noblemen — wend to the West. 
Load your rude wagon with your scanty goods. 

And drive to the plentiful woods ; 
Your wheels as they rumble will scare 

The fleet-footed deer from the road, 
And waken the sulky, brown bear 

In his long, unmolested abode; 
The Redman shall gaze in dumb fear 

At the wain of the strange pioneer. 
His barbarous eyes vainly spell 

The capital letters which tell, 

That the White-foot is bound 

For the Hunter's green ground 

Where the buffaloes dwell. 

To the Ohio Country, move on ! 
Bring your brain and your brawn, 

(Some books of the best, 

Pack into the chest!) ■>; 

Bring your wives and your sons, 
Your maidens and lisping ones ; 

Your trust in God bring; 

Choose a spot by a spring, 
And build you a castle — a throne, 
A palace of logs — b'ut your own ! 

Happy the new-born child, 
Nursed in the greenwood wild; 

Though his cradle be only a trough. 

Account him well off; 
For born to the purple is he — 
The proud royal robe of the Free I 



Poems on Ohio. " 65 



For the latest time is the best, 
And the happiest place is the West, 
Where man shall establish anew 
Things excellent, beautiful, true. 



THE PIONEERS. 

By Thomas C. Harbaugh.^^ (1849 — •) 

*T walk across the meadow in the balmy breath of spring; 
The earliest flowers are blooming and the birds are all a-wing, 
I see a little hillside where two humble stones arise, 
And mark the spot where sleep the dead whose memories we 
prize. 

Beneath their axes fell the trees, their rifles sought the deer. 
They struggled with that fortitude known to the pioneer; 
They met the redman face to face, as eagles they were free. 
And owned allegiance to no king who ruled across the sea. 

At liberty's immortal shrine they worshipped day by day. 
For empire's occidental course they bravely cleared the way; 
With hearts of oak and nerves of steel and healthy brains, I 

know. 
They made the forests blossom like a garden long ago. 



" Thomas C. Harbaugh was born at Middleton, Md. He came with 
his parents to Piqua, Ohio, at an early age. Later he moved to Casstown, 
Miami County, where he still resides. His literary efforts began in 1867, 
and he has since contributed to many prominent journals in every phase 
of literature. He has published his verse in three volumes : Maple 
Leaves (1885), Bugle Notes of the Blue (1906), Lyrics of the Gray 
(1907). His works of fiction are numerous. Among the most prominent 
are the White Squadron, Janet Sinclaire, and Robespiere. He is a fre- 
quent contributor to the Sunday papers. His productions frequently ap- 
pear in the Chicago Ledger, Youth's Companion and Ohio Farmer. It if 
said he visited every battle-field of the Civil War to gather data for hi? 
novels. 
5 



66 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

No gilded cradles held the bab'es the mothers loved to kiss, 
Where howled the famished wolf at night, or rose the serpent's 

hiss, 
And where she led them unto God with calm and tender brow 
We follow, with no thought of her, the ever busy plow. 

No longer on the hillock's side rings out the settler's steel, 
No longer in the cabins old sings low the spinning wheel ; 
The pioneers have vanished like the billows of the tide, 
With here and there a stone or two to tell us where they died. 

So, when I cross the meadow in the balmy breeze of spring, 
With flowers blooming round me and the merry birds a-wing. 
It is to part the grass blades, each a tiny emerald spear, 
And read upon a leaning stone; ''Here sleeps a pioneer." 

Then comes to me a vision of the brave, the true, the bold. 
An era grander, greater than the fabled age of gold — 
When the misty azure mountains 'twixt us and the eastern sea 
Heard in the settlers' march the tread of nations yet to be. 

From beyond the Alleghanies came that small, heroic band, 
I saw them cross the border of that death-invested land ; 
No obstacles retard their march and dangers lurk in vain, 
They b'uild within the forest and they rear upon the plain. 

They carve a way for progress in the dark and lonely wood. 
They hold the savage foe at bay, they triumph o'er the flood ; 
And commerce follows in their wake, as day succeeds the night, 
And fairer beam the stars that shine upon our banner bright. 

All honor to the pioneers whose race has passed away ! 
Their deeds have won a fame that lasts forever and a day ; 
And when I part the tender grass upon the hillside fair 
I do it gently for I know the brave hearts resting there. 

The homes they wrested from the wilds they left to you and me, 
We drew from those heroic souls our love of liberty ; 
The rights that we enjoy today they battled to maintain, 
And God, for them, has blessed us upon every hill and plain. 



Poems on Ohio. 67 

THE FOREST RANGERS.^« 

By Andrew Coffinberry.^^ 

the capture. 

Sweet genius of the forest shade, 

Where nature's treasures bloom, 
Where Flora decorates the glade 

As stars the heavens illume, 
And ever with her fragrant breath, 

The summer zephyr feeds. 
As light they skim o'er moor and heath 

And kiss her brier-rose meads : 
Deign thy enchantment to impart, 

To fan the latent flame 
That swells and animates his heart, 

A bard without a name, 
Who fain would sing of wild wood fare. 

The redman's vast retreat, 
And paints its ills and terrors where 

Its varied evils meet. 
How little know mankind at large, 

Of vivid joys or pains, 
Whose chief solicitude, or charge 

Is to enhance their gains. 
O ! how exciting is his life. 

Who threads the western brakes ; 
Whose mind, inured to deadly strife. 

To all its danger wakes. 



" The Forest Rangers, a poetic tale of the Western wilderness in 
1794, is a poem of seven cantos, published in 1842. The above constitute 
the opening lines. It is meant to narrate the events connected with the 
march and battle of General Wayne's army. 

" Andrew Coffinberry was a Virginian of German descent. He served 
three years before the mast. He came to Mansfield and became a lawyer 
in 1818. He was nick-named "The Count." 



68 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Then genius of the forest wild, 

Thy witching tribute bring, 
Inspire thy unsophistic child, 

Thy sylvan scenes to sing. 

11. 

As on a cloudless morn in May 
The sun upreared his gilded ray. 
And rising o'er the shady land. 
Displayed his glories, bright and bland, 
And soaring in maturer day 
Drank crystal dew from every spray. 
Enamored with his genial blaze 
The woodland warblers woke their lays, 
Till the extended forest rung 
With joyous notes of sylvan song. 
Then where its deep entangled maze 
Embosomed close the dark Auglaize, 
A wildered stranger in the land. 
All drenched with dew-drops, reached her strand. 
He cautious trod the brush-wood o'er, 
Until he reached the rivers' shore. 
Then bended low, his brow to lave 
Beneath her cool and limpid wave, 
' To sooth and calm his fevered blood ; 

Then slaked his thirst from her pure flood — 

Arising then erect he stood, 

And seemed the genius of the wood. 



III. 



Such symmetry displayed each part, 
'Twas subject meet for Grecian art, 
For ne'er did artist's chisel trace 
A form or mien of nobler grace : 
The man was six feet high in stature; 
Genius and beauty marked each feature, 



Poems on Ohio. 69 



And whosoever glanced on him, 
Discerned Herculean strength of limb; 
In his elastic step was traced 
Sure evidence of restless haste; 
His age, though under twenty-four, 
From recent suffering now seemed more 
Upon his graceful dress of green, 
Sprinkles of recent blood were seen. 
To guard him from hostile attacks, 
He bore a rifle, dirk and axe ; 
And his flushed countenance and eyes 
Betokened thoughts of bold emprise — 
His life seemed cast on some adventure, 
Of all his consciousness the center. 



IV. 



The stranger here surveyed each pass — 

Each inlet, copse and soft morass, 

Observant still of every sound 

That woke the solitude around ; 

And every impress of the sand, 

His restless eye with caution scanned, 

Then warily did he unpack 

The contents of his scanty sack. 

And ate with vigilance and haste, 

Of hardened deers' flesh, his repast: 

Repacking then his little store. 

He turned him from the oozy shore, 

And thence his lonely way pursued, 

Northwardly through the cumbering wood; 

On the west bank of the Auglaize, 

Threading with care the thicket's maze. 

As eagerly he wended on. 

His glance was ever and anon 

Bent through the darkling forest shade, 

Lest foeman, crouched in ambuscade. 



70 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Should stealthily, unseen or heard, 
Meet him with weapons ready bared ; 
From hostile rifles naught was feared, 
So dense the tangled copse appeared. 

V. 

'Twas seventeen hundred and ninety-four, 

And all the west was peopled o'er 

With painted warriors of the wood, 

Who ever venge fully pursued 

Such of the pale faced bands as strayed 

Too near their bloody ambuscade. 

Here mustered strong the Kaskaskies, 

Wyandots and Miamies, 

Also the Pottawatamies, 

The Delawares and Chippewas, 

The Kickapoos and Ottawas, 

And Shawanoes and many strays 

From almost every Indian Nation, 

Had joined the fearless congregation : 

Who, after St. Clair's dread defeat 

Returned to this secure retreat: 

Here, through the forest far and near 

They daily chased the timid deer. 

And battened on his dainty flesh — 

Oft to arouse their thirst afresh 

For human sacrifice and blood 

And renovate their warring mood 

They led some victim to the stake — 

Some white man captured in the brake ; 

Else fated settler dragged in strife 

From his lone home, with frantic wife 

That heard her suckling's shrieks and cries 

When butchered there before her eyes. 

VI. 

And thus the ruthless savage Legion 
Held all the trackless v^estern region 



Poems on Ohio. 71 



Save where the band of gallant Wayne 
Lay further westward in campaign :^^' 
Though limited was Wayne's command, 
The world knew not a braver band , 
As in seclusion there they dwelt, 
They for their bleeding country felt 
And meditated 'gainst the foe, 
To strike a deep decisive blow, 
And die each man with arms in hand 
Or of the murderers free the land. 
But now who ventured here to stray 
Was deemed to cast his life away, 
For border men were doomed to feel 
The savage prowler's lead or steel. 

VIL 

The daring settlers far and near 
Through all the western broad frontier. 
Were destined to a scene of strife 
Where many a brave lay down his life; 
Night ever found them on their guard, 
Lest prowlers met them unprepared ; 
And each log cabin then was made 
A garrison, their strength to aid, 
And garrisons of prouder name 
The favorite resorts of fame 
Did never nurture braver bands 
Than settlers of the frontier lands 
Yet oft by numbers overborne, 
Their wives and infants thence were torn, 
Or in their humble homes entombed. 
Were by the dreaded flames consumed. 
The warlike fathers falling first, 
By severed brain or mortal thrust, 
Were spared the sight of many a scene 
That wrenched a mother's heart in twain. 



At Fort Wayne. 



72 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

VIII. 

When Sol's decline in western heaven, 
Advanced the lengthened shades of even, 
The stranger musing sad of heart, 
Sighed for some safe retreat, apart 
From the resorts of savage men 
And beasts of prey, in some lone glen, 
Where for the night he might repose 
In less exposure to his foes ; 
For in advance he heard loud yells 
Of savages and sound of bells ; 
Betokening that some point he neared 
Where foes in numbers to be feared, 
Resided, or collected for 
Fresh feats of murderous border war. 
Besides his store of meat grew short 
And shooting here was dangerous sport, 
For his good rifle's piercing crack 
Might call forth odds upon his track. 
For here might murky hosts abound 
Far better missed by him than found. 

IX. 

His apprehensions all were right. 
For in advance almost in sight 
Lay modern Ockenoxy®^ village. 
Where warriors were dividing pillage; 
Assorting out with jealous care 
And giving each his destined share 
Of plunder snatched from the frontier, 
And late supplies of bear and deer. 
As on the east the river lay, 
He westward turned his weary way ; 



*^ The site of "Ockenoxy village" was at Charloc. The original 
county-seat town of Paulding County. It was situated about twelve miles 
south of the present city of Defiance. 



Poems on Ohio. 73 



Through matted shrubbery, with pain 
He struggled on with Httle gain 
Of distance, till the stars appeared 
And then some open space he neared; 
Anon he found it a morass, 
Extremely difficult to pass. 
With high resolve and effort strong 
From tuft to tuft he forward sprung; 
Now heard the wolf with surly growl. 
Responding to the panther's howl. 
And as the panther near advanced, 
To every point the stranger glanced, 
Yet nothing met his eager sight 
Affording means to strike a light. 
To terrify the ravenous beast 
That threatened on his flesh to feast. 

X. 

As on he strained his watchful eyes 

Thus did the man soliloquize: 

*Ts this the sequel of the past. 

To die by this fierce beast at last? 

Is this unlooked for immolation. 

Of my bright hopes the consummation ? 

O ! fickle fancy how alluring ; 

Now threatening and then reassuring — 

This bubble life seems but the prey 

Of stormy impulse day by day; 

But late so many perils past 

Strange it should be thus wrecked at last 

These new-born visions of my mind, 

Should be to early tombs consigned — 

I deemed my life destined to prove 

A scene of glowing sun bright love ; 

But now its sun is overcast 

And this drear night may prove my last; 



74 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Well, be it so, 'tis but a life — 
Yet better were it sped in strife 
And bold encounter with yon race, 
Whose deeds the human would disgrace ; 
Then might his well strung arm exchange 
Some sturdy blows in sweet revenge; 
Then should I die with heart elate 
Compared with this unfooked for fate. — 
Come death or danger, weal or woe, 
Yet shall this arm some action show — 
'Gainst such a foe and in the dark, 
'Twere strange I should not miss my mark." 



THE EMIGRANT. 
By Frederick W. Thomas.®- (1811-1866.) 

the pioneer hunters. 

Here once Boone trod — the hardy pioneer — 

The only white man in the wilderness ; 

Oh, how he loved alone to hunt the deer, 

Alone at eve his simple meal to dress; 

No mark upon the tree, nor print nor track, 

To lead him forward nor to guide him back ; 

He roved the forest, king by main and might, 

And looked up to the sky and shaped his course aright. 



"^ Frederick William Thomas was born in Charleston, South Carolina. 
At the age of seventeen he began the study of law. A year later he 
wrote a political satire, which caused the office of the newspaper, in which 
it was published, to be mobbed. He came to Cincinnati in 1830, where 
a part of "The Emigrant" was published. Two years later he gave it 
in the Young Men's Lyceum of that city and so favorable was its re- 
ception that he was asked to publish it. It was quite popular, extracts of 
it being reprinted in many of the best periodicals of the country. Mr, 
Thomas was connected with many of the western papers and was quite 
popular as a platform speaker. In 1841 Thomas Ewing appointed him to 
select a library for the Treasury Department. Later he became a pro- 
fessor in the Alabama Universitv. 



Poems on Ohio. 75 

That mountain there that lifts its bald high head 

Above the forest, was, perchance, his throne; 

There has he stood and marked the woods outspread, 

Like a great kingdom that was all his own ; 

In hunting shirt and moccasins arrayed, 

With bear-skin cap, and pouch and needful blade. 

How carelessly he lean'd upon his gtm ! 

That scepter of the wild that had so often won. 

Those western pioneers an impulse felt. 

Which their less hardy sons scarce comprehend; 

Alone in Nature's wildest scenes they dwelt; 

W^here crag and precipice and torrent blend, 

And stretched around the wilderness as rude 

As the red rovers of its solitude, 

Who watched their coming with a hate profound, 

And fought with deadly strife for every inch of ground. 

To shun a greater ill sought they the wild ? 

No, they left happier lands behind them far, 

And brought the nursing mother and her child 

To share the dangers of the border war ; 

The log-built cabin from the Indian barred, 

Their little boy, perchance, kept watch and ward. 

While father plowed with rifle at his back. 

Or sought the glutted foe through many a devious track. 

How cautiously, yet fearlessly, that boy 

Would search the forest for the wild beast's lair, 

And lift his rifle with a hurried joy 

If chance he spied the Indian lurking there : 

And should they bear him prisoner from the fight. 

While they were sleeping in the dead midnight, 

He slips the thongs that bind him to the tree 

And leaving death with them, bounds home right happily. 

Before the mother, bursting through the door, 

The red man rushes where her infants rest ; 

O God ! he hurls them on the cabin floor ! 

W^hile she, down kneeling, clasps them to her breast. 



76 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

How he exults and revels in her woe, 
And lifts the weapon yet delays the blow ; 
Ha, that report ! behold ! he reels ! he dies ! 
And quickly to her arms the husband-father-flies. 

In the long winter eve their cabin fast 
The big logs blazing in the chimney wide — 
They'd hear the Indian howling or the blast, 
And deem themselves in castellated pride : 
Then would the fearless forester disclose 
Most strange adventures with his sylvan foes, 
Of how his arts did over theirs prevail 
And how he followed far upon their bloody trail. 

And it was happiness, they said, to stand, 

When summer smiled upon them in the wood 

And see their little clearing there expand. 

And be the masters of the solitude. 

Danger was but excitement ; and when came 

The tide of emigration, life grew tame ; 

Then would they seek some unknown wild anew, 

And soon above the trees the smoke was curling blue. 

The Red Man. 

How patient was that red man of the wood ! 

Not like the white man garrulous of ill — 

Starving ? who heard his faintest wish for food ? 

Sleeping upon the snow-drift on the hill ! 

Who heard him chide the blast or say 'twas cold? 

His wounds are freezing ! is the anguish told ? 

Tell him his child is murdered with its mother ! 

He seems like carved out stone that has no woe to smother. 

With front erect, up-looking, dignified 
Behold high Hecla in eternal snows ! 
Yet while the raging tempest is defied. 
Deep in its bosom how the pent flame glows ! 



Poems on Ohio. 77 

And when it bursts forth in its fiery wrath ! 

How melts the ice-hill from its fearful path, 

As on it rolls, unquenched, and all untamed ! — 

Thus was it with that chief when his wild passions flamed. 

Nature's own statesman — by experience taught, 

He judged most wisely and could act as well; 

With quickest glance could read another's thought, 

His own, the while, the keenest could not tell ; 

Warrior — with skill to lengthen or combine. 

Lead on or back, the desultory line ; 

Hunter — he passed the trackless forest through. 

Now on the mountain trod, now launched the light canoe. 

To the Great Spirit would his spirit bow, 
With hopes that Nature's impulses impart; 
Unlike the Christian, who just says his vow 
With heart enough to say it all by heart. 
Did we his virtues from his faults discern, 
'Twould teach a lesson that we well might learn: 
An inculcation worthiest of our creed, 
To tell the simple truth and do the promised deed. 

How deeply eloquent was the debate, . .. 

Beside the council fire of those red men ! 

With language burning as his sense of hate ; 

With gesture just; as eye of keenest ken; \ 

With illustration simple but profound. 

Drawn from the sky above him or the ground 

Beneath his feet ; and with unfaltering zeal. 

He spoke from a warm heart and made e'en cold hearts feel. 

And this is eloquence. 'Tis the intense. 

Impassioned fervor of a mind deep fraught 

With native energy, when soul and sense 

Burst forth, embodied in the btirning thought ; 

When look, emotion, tone, are all combined — 

When the whole man is eloquent with mind — 

A power that comes not to the call or quest, 

But from the gifted soul and the deep feeling breast. 



78 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Poor Logan^^ had it when he mourned that none 
Were left to mourn for him ; — 'twas his who swayed 
The Roman Senate by a look or tone ; 
'Twas the Athenian's when his foes, dismayed, 
Shrunk from the earthquake of his trumpet call; 
'Twas Chatham's^* strong as either, or as all ; 
'Twas Henry's ^^ holiest, when his spirit woke 
Our patriot fathers' zeal to burst the British yoke. 



TO THE OHIO. 



Auspicious Time! unroll the scroll of years — 

Behold our pious pilgrim fathers, when 

They launch'd their little bark, and braved all fears, 

Those peril-seeking, freedom-loving men ! 

Bless thee thou stream ! abiding blessings bless 

Thy farthest wave — Nile®® of the wilderness ! 

And be thy broad lands peopled far and wide, 

With hearts as free as his who now doth bless thy tide 

And may new states arise, and stretch afar, 
In glory to the great Pacific shore — 
A galaxy, without a falling star — 
Freedom's own Mecca, where the world adore. 
There may Art build-to Knowledge there be given, 
The book of Nature and the light of Heav'n; 
There be the statesman's and the patriot's shrine, 
And Oh, be happy there, the hearts that woo the nine.®'' 



*'Logan, the Mingo Chieftain, in Dunmore's War (See Logan Elm, 
ante ) . 

"William Pitt, who became Earl of Chatham and is esteemed by 
Americans for his defense of their cause. 

^''Patrick Henry, in his elegant speech before the Virginia Conven- 
tion. 

•""Nile of the Wilderness." — The Ohio. 

"The Nine Muses, who presided over song and the different kinds 
of poetry and also the arts and sciences. 



Poems on Ohio. 79 

There is a welcome in this western land 

Like the old welcomes which were said to give 

The friendly heart where'er they gave the hand ; 

Within this soil the social virtues live, 

Like its own forest trees, unpruned and free — 

At least there is one welcome here for me: 

A breast that pillowed all my sorrows past, 

And waits my coming now and lov'd me first and last. 



THE BACKWOODSMAN.«« 

By Ephraim Peabody. 

The silent wilderness for me ! 

Where never sound is heard. 
Save the rustling of the squirrel's foot 

And the flitting wing of bird, 
Or its low and interrupted note. 

And the deer's quick, crackling tread 
And the swaying of the forest boughs 

As the wind moves overhead. 

Alone, (how glorious to be free!) 

My good dog at my side, 
My rifle hanging in my arm 

I range the forests wide. 
And now the regal buffalo 

Across the plains I chase; 
Now track the mountain stream to find 

The beaver's lurking place. 



®* "The early pioneers in the settlement of Ohio were very noble 
men, intellectually, morally and religiously. They were men who recog- 
nized God as our common Father, and all men as brothers. In heart 
and life they wished to adopt the fundamental rule of Christianity in 
their intercourse with their fellow men." Abbot's History of Ohio. 



80 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

I stand upon the mountain's top 

And (solitude profound!) 
Not even a woodman's smoke curls up 

Within the horizon's bound. 
Below, as o'er its ocean breadth 

The air's light currents run, 
I The wilderness of moving leaves 

Is glancing in the sun. 

I look around to where the sky 

Meets the far forest line, 
And this imperial domain — 

This kingdom — all is mine. 
This bending heaven — these floating clouds — 

Waters that ever roll — 
And wilderness of glory, bring 

Their offerings to my soul. 

My palace built by God's own hand, 

The world's fresh prime hath seen; 
Wide stretch its living halls away, 

Pillared and roofed with green. 
My music is the wind that now 

Pours loud its swelling bars, 
Now lulls in dying cadences — 

My festal lamps are stars. 

Though when, in this my lonely home, 

My star-watched couch I press, 
I hear no fond "good night" — think not 

I am companionless. 
O no ! I see my father's house. 

The hill, the tree, the stream, 
And the looks and voices of my home 

Come gently to my dream. 



Poems on Ohio. 81 



And in these solitary haunts, 

While slumbers every tree 
In night and silence, God himself 

Seems nearer unto me. 
I feel his presence in these shades 

Like the embracing air; 
And as my eye-lids close in sleep 

My heart is hushed in prayer. 



CROSSING THE ALLEGHANIES. 

By Mrs. Laura M. Thurston. (1812-1842.)®* 

The broad, the bright, the glorious West, 

Is spread before me now ! 
Where the gray mists of morning rest 

Beneath yon mountain's brow ! 
The bound is past — the goal is won — 
The region of the setting sun 

Is open to my view. 
Land of the valiant and the free — 
My own Green Mountain land — to thee 

And thine, a long adieu ! 

I hail thee. Valley of the West, 

For what thou yet shalt be ! 
I hail thee for the hopes that rest 

Upon thy destiny! 



**Laura M, Hawley was born in Norfolk, Connecticut. She re- 
ceived her education at the Hartford Female Seminary. Upon leaving 
school she became a teacher, first in Hartford, later in New Bedford 
and then in Philadelphia. From here she went to New Albany, Indiana, 
to take charge of a young women's academy. Here she married Frank- 
lin Thurston in 1839. Her untimely death three years later no doubt 
cut short the career of a writer with a deep poetic mind. 



82 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications.. 

Here — from this mountain height I see 
Thy bright waves floating to the sea, 

Thine emerald fields outspread,. 
And feel that in the book of fame 
Proudly shall thy recorded name 

In later days be read. 

Yet while I gaze upon thee now. 

All glorious as thou art, 
A cloud is resting on my brow, 

A weight upon my heart. 
To me — in all thy youthful pride — 
Thou art a land of cares untried, 

Of untold hopes and fears. 
Thou art — yet not for thee I grieve ; 
But for the far-oflf land I leave, 

I look on thee with tears. 

O ! brightly, brightly glow thy skies. 

In summer's sunny hours ! 
The green earth seems a paradise 

Arrayed in summer flowers f 
But oh, there is a land afar 
Whose skies to me are brighter far 

Along the Atlantic shore !' 
For eyes beneath their radiant shrine, 
In kindlier glances answered mine — - 

Can these their light restore? 

Upon the lofty bound I stand 

That parts the East and West ; 
Before me — lies a fairy land ; 

Behind — a home of rest ! 
Here, hope her wild enchantment flings,. 
Portrays all bright and lovely things. 

My foot-steps to allure — 
But there in memory's light I see 
All that was once most dear to me — 

My young heart's cynosure ! 



Poems on Ohio. 83 

THE WESTERN PIONEER. 

By John J. Piatt. (1835- .y^ 

Into the prairies' boundless blossom, 
Into the wide West's sunburnt bosom, 

The earliest emigrants came : 
The flowers like sunny miracles, grew 
Before them, fragrant from the dew, 

Filling the grass like flame! 

From some old land of song and life — 
Of man in manhood's glowing strife. 

Departing all alone, 
And journeying with the journeying sun, 
They came — their busy empire won — 

Before the white man known. 

The Indian saw the moving bees. 

From flower to flower, in dream-like breeze 

Blowing their pilgrim way; 
Or, deep in honey of the flower 
Hanging in sunshine hour by hour. 

Dream through the dreaming day. 



"John James Piatt was born at James's Mills, in Ohio County, 
Indiana. At the age of ten he went with his parents to Columbus, Ohio. 
When fourteen years old he attended the High School and Capital Uni- 
versity and later, Kenyon College, where he began his verse making. 
In 1856 he accompanied his parents to Illinois. Here he wrote three 
lyrics, that attracted such men as James Russell Lowell to his genius, 
who published "The Morning Street" in the Atlantic Monthly, Upon 
revisiting Columbus, Mr. Piatt renewed his acquaintance with William 
Dean Howells, editor of the State Journal and the two published a joint 
volume of verse under the caption, "Poems of Two Friends." He has 
held some official positions in Washington, but he is best known and 
loved for his poetry which has the swing and soul of Western ideals. 
Literary critics are agreed in calling John James Piatt " a poet of power 
and refinement." 



84 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

He saw the future's garment gleam 

O'er mounds of tribes and legend-streams — 

O'er the sweet waste of flowers ; 
He saw his hunting ground — the past ! 
Lit with the domes of cities vast — 

Glory of spires and towers ! 

Those other bees ! He felt — he saw, 
With sorrowing eye, in dreamy awe, 

The blossoms of the West 
Thrill with sunny toiling bees 
Of busy Freedom, happy Peace — 

Wide blessings and the bless'd. 

They come ! They came ! Lo ! they are here !" 
The Indian heart-beat everywhere 

Starts echoes wild no more ; 
The leaves have fallen from his trees 
Of life : dead leaves, in every breeze, 

Rustle f orevermore ! 



MAHONING VALLEY PIONEERS' REUNION, SEPT. 

loth, 1877. 

By Mrs. Kate B. Sherwood. 

Read on the occasion by Miss Jennie Arms. 
A sturdy Yankee race were they 

Who swept the Indian from his trail, 
And set the humming mills to play 

In all the sweet Mahoning vale ; 

Broad-shouldered, strong, and lithe of limb, 
Keen-eyed and swift of heart and hand, 

Full-bearded, tawny faced and grim 

With watch and toil in hostile land;. 



Poems on Ohio. 8S 

But light of heart and quick to fling 

The thoughts of hardship to the breeze, 

Whose hopes hke eagles on the wing 
Dipped never lower than the trees. 

Men born to manly deeds, to row 

And run and wrestle, plant and plow, 

To girdle forests, speed the bow 

And pluck the game from copse and bough. 

Men keen of aim, who never lost 

A bird swift speeding in his flight. 
Who held their own at any cost 

If there were foes to toil or fight. 

A comely race of women they 

Sweet-eyed and slender, with a grace 

That comes from gentlest sympathy 

Who with those pioneers kept pace; 

Who held it good to follow where 

Their love and faith sent on before. 
Who held it were a shame to spare 

Themselves the toil their husbands bore; 

Wise-hearted women, who were taught 

To sew and spin, to bake and brew, 
Who knew the virtue of a thought 

Is in the virtue of a stew. 

Brown, curling locks and eyes like doves. 
Light Saxon braids and eyes of blue, 

But shining from them all the loves 
Of loyal faith intense and true. 

"For better or for worse," said they 

Low bending at the altar, then 
Arose and calmly rode away 

The earnest wives of earnest men: 



S6 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Away through forest dim and drear, 
By river ford, by mountain crest, 

Until they found and nurtured here 

The new New England of the west. 

It is no little thing to break 

One after one the forest bands. 

For nature ever wide-awake 

Repairs each breach with jealous hands; 

She sends the fever and the cold, 

She sends the famine pale and bowed, 

She sends the wolf upon the fold. 

She sends the coffin and the shroud. 

And in their cabins rude and bare 
How many long with dying eyes, 

For one sweet glimpse of native air 

Where happy homes of childhood rise ! 

But, when as on a hostile height 
The ensign has his colors set. 

A shouting army hails the sight 
And swarm upon the parapet. 

So came the tide of sturdy worth, 

To swell the new New England band; 

The Scotchman with his pride of birth 
And merry heart and canny hand; 

The quick impulsive Irish lad; 

The Teuton, staunch and slow of fears; 
A sprinkling of all lands they had 

That grow the stuff of pioneers. 

The axes ring, the clearings spread, 

The cornfields wimple in the sun ; 

The cabin walls were over-spread 

With trophies of the trap and gun. 



Poems on Ohio. 87 

And from the hearths of glowing logs 

The children's shouts begin to ring, 
Or, in the lanes as through the fogs 

They carry water from the spring, — 

Stout, rosy boys and girls are they 

Whose heads scarce reach the dipping boughs, 
Who learn their first philosphy 

While driving home the cows. 

And now the gospel tents are spread 

On hill-side or on river ford. 
Rude Tabernacles shadowed 

By presence of the living lord ; 

And schools arise, and courts of law 

To settle boundaries. The arts 
Of law they value not a straw 

Who carry justice in their hearts. 

The years go by ! and towns arise, 

And flocks of cattle dot the hills ; 
The lumbering stage-coach onward hies, 

The boat-horn makes responsive thrills. 

The years go by ! and mines give up 

The tawny treasures that they hold; 
And lo, a Midas touch ! whose cup 

Receives them has been turned to gold. 

The years go by ! men throng around 

To see the wires that span the poles. 
And while they doubt, a humming sound 

And lo, the electric current rolls. 

The years go by ! a rush, a scream, 

A sudden shivering of the vales, 
The flashing of an angry gleam. — 

The railroad king pursues his trails. 



,88 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

The years go by ! the calls come fast 
For volunteers and not in vain ; 

Our soldiers made a living past 

Of Bunker's Hill and Lundy's Lane. 

The years go by ! and cities hum 

And mine and mill are throbbing fast; 

The nations to our markets come 

And bear away some Titan cast. 

O proud Mahoning ! like a queen 

Set crowned and dowered in the west ! 

The wealth of kingdoms gleam between 
Her jewelled brow and jewelled breast. 

O valley, rich in fertile plain, 

In mighty forest, fair and tall, 
In waving wealths of corn and grain, 

In pictured glen and water-fall. 
O valley, where the panting forge 

Has stirred the bosom of the world, 
'Till lo, in every hill-side gorge 

The flags of labor are unfurled. 

O valley, rich in sturdy toil. 

In all that makes a people great, 

We hail thee queen of Buckeye soil 
And fling our challenge to the State ! 

We hail thee Queen whose beauty won 
Our fathers in their golden years ! 

A shout for grander days begun ! 
A sigh for vanished pioneers ! 



Poems on Ohio. 89^ 

THE MAUMEE PIONEERS. 

(Written for the Maumee Valley Pioneers' Reunion, Toledo, Feb- 
ruary 22nd, 1880, by Mrs. Kate B. Sherwood and recited by Mrs. J. D^ 
Irving). 

Come, friends, around this festal board, 

Where peace and plenty smile. 
And memories in each bosom stored 

Are quickening the while ; 
Come, let your hearts go back again, 

With more of joy than tears. 
Unto that sturdy race of men, 
The Maumee Pioneers. 

Let others tell the tales of Dee, 

The Danube and the Don, 
The Rhine that ripples to the sea 

The Iser rolling on; — 
New England's glades and palisades, 

Virginia's vaunted years, — 
We'll tell of sturdier men and maids, 

The Maumee Pioneers. 

We'll tell how came the brave La Salle, 

Two hundred years ago, 
To list St. Mary's madrigal. 

Responsive to St. Joe ; 
To speak the vows that woke the trance, 

Of long unfruitful years. 
And give to Frontenac and France 

The Maumee Pioneers. 

Of Couthemanche whose lonely fort 

A century before 
Stood guard where Fort Miami's port 

Heard British cannon roar;*^^ 



"Fort Miami, the oldest fortification in Ohio, was built by an ex- 
pedition sent by Frontenac, Governor of Canada, in 1680. It stood on 
the left bank of the Maumee River, where Maumee City now stands- 
The British occupied the fort from 1785 to 1795, and again in the War- 
of 1812. 



90 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

How stripped Perrot the fagot sees 
Flash through Miami's jeers, 

'Till save the swift Outagamis, 
The Maumee Pioneers. 

I mind me in those bloody days 
Of Foxes, Sacs and Sioux, 

Of Miamis and Ottawas, 

And Iroquois and Pous, 

An Indian woman 'tis we see 
Before her Priest in tears ; 

Her prayers have saved from massacre 
The Maumee Pioneers. 

Our feet are on historic ground, 

The very streets we tread 
Re-echo to a solemn sound 

Above the shroudless dead. 
Now French now British we define. 

Now red ally appears, — 
They form a vast and shadowy line, 

The Maumee pioneers. 

Here sleep the braves of Pontiac, 

There Harmar's hosts go down, 
And bVDld "Mad Anthony" brings back 

The knights of old renown ; 
There Harrison's battalions glance 

Along the burnt frontiers, 
And in the trail of arms advance 

The Maumee Pioneers. 

Fort Meigs and Fort Miami show 

A sweet and solemn truce. 
And old Fort Industry, I trow. 

Has met a nobler use ; 
So we above our leveled graves, 

Across the flood of years, 
May name the once dishonored braves 

With Maumee Pioneers. 



Poems on Ohio. 91 

For valor's not of any race, 

And right of grace has none, 
If Wayne is given a hero's place, 

Tecumseh's fame is won; 
If Wells'^ b'e praised for warlike deeds 

That wring the heart with tears, 
Then Simon Girty's fealty leads 

The Maumee Pioneers. 

The days of bow and spear are fled 

Of tent and bark teepee. 
The axe is ringing in their stead. 

The woodman zones his tree ; 
And where the Indian village stood 

The cabin chinked appears. 
And white-haired children scour the wood, — 

The Maumee Pioneers. 

They fight no barbed and painted foe. 

They run no gauntlet where 
The Indian tomahawk is slow 

A captured foe to spare ; 
They fly no cruel massacre 

Of plundering buccaneers ; 
But deadlier foes they stricken see. 

The Maumee Pioneers. 

They fought the famine and the cold. 

They conquered field and flood, 
They drove the murrain from the fold. 

The fever from the blood ; 
Their triumphs blossom in the vales 

And blush along the piers 
And fleck the lakes with snowy sails, — 

The Maumee Pioneers. 



"William Wells had been captured by the Indians when a child" 
and had been adopted by Chief Little Turtle. He was a trusted and 
confidential spy of General Wayne. 



'92 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

The wind is up, the sails are spread, 

The gales of traffic blow ; 
The Yankee comes with level head, 

The Teuton sure and slow ; 
The thrifty Scot, the Irish true, — 

And Quaker grace appears 
A wholesome leaven running through 

The Maumee Pioneers. 

O free born sires ! from whom there runs 

A tide of valor through 
The hearts of sons remotest sons ! 

O wives and daughters true ! — 
Who toil and spin, and spin and pray, 

And hiding homesick tears 
Keep heart and hope that crown today 

The Maumee Pioneers. 

Blow soft above their lowly graves, 

O north wind swift and keen ! 
And south wind that the lily waves, 

Keep aye their grasses green ! 
O Spirit of the Centuries ! 

Blow on his heart who hears. 
And wake to fragant memories 

The Maumee Pioneers ! 



THE PIONEER/^ 

By Elizabeth Shaw. 



'The pioneer went from the firelight that fell 

On the hearthstone he loved the b'est, 
From hand-clasp and music and Sabbath bell. 

To go — where the sun goes — West. 

"This poem was read at the Centennial Celebration at Hudson, 
Summit County, June 5, 1900. The author is a grand-daughter of Rev. 
James Shaw, D. D., who graduated from Western Reserve College in 
1834. 



Poems on Ohio. 93 

The stars on their way from Atlantic's cold spray 

O'er the proud Appalachian's crest 
Stretched long fingers of light through the dusk of the night 
To point the place of their rest 

In the West, 
The far-away place of their rest. 
The Pioneer followed the march of the spheres ; 

In his footsteps veiled History sped ; 
And today, through the echoes of hurrying years, 

We hear the far sound of his tread. 
Clear-eyed and fearless and steadfast, 
The Pioneer went to his labors ; 
Not fiercely, to wring with a desperate hand from reluctant 

Nature 
A pittance for daily needs, but with kingly tread advancing 
Down the snow-paved halls of the forest, his axe-scepter raised 

in command. 
Storm-pruned, like the trees that he hewed, and, like them, 

with strong frame ice-armored, 
Gnarled limbs that feared not the cold and skin like the bark 

of a sapling, — 
What wonder that maple and beech bowed in humble submission 

before him? 
The fresh-hewn wood breathed its fragrance to welcome the 

newly crowned monarch. 
And even the bleeding stumps in his backward pathway ar- 
rayed them 
In court robes of velvet lichens to honor the tyrant who smote 

them. 
Triumph, perhaps, but not comfort was his in his savage 

dominion. 
Famine and Fever, grim anarchists, shadowed his coming and 

going; 
The wolf, self-appointed Lord Chamberlain, stared through the 

cracks of the cabin ; 
But still, with statesmanship dauntless, prophetic, the Pioneer 

wrought for the future. 



94 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications, 

When Hunger and Cold through the Forest old 

With the wild b'easts went wandering by, 
When Loneliness hung like the dying Christ 

Between pitiless earth and sky, 
The Pioneer toiled that his children might reap 

In the years of the by and by. 
When stern Death left empty the log hewn crib 

Far from service of human skill, 
And the sunlight cast only the shade of a cross 

Athwart the rude cabin's doorsill, 
The Pioneer toiled that his God might give 

The harvest to whom He should will. 
We garner that harvest by right of our birth, 

But the world shares the fruit of his tears ; 
For minds that hew pathways to new realms of truth, 

And hearts that faint not through long years, 
And souls that dare follow the beckoning stars, 

Are the heirs of the Pioneers. 
Like pigeons, a-homing the years wing their way 

To the silence from which they came. 
And the Pioneer's story is written today 

In the crimson-stained annals of fame. 
The town that our fathers baptized with their blood, 

Though twined with this century's birth. 
Is destined to live till Time's day-star shall give 

Eternity's dawn to the earth. 
The blood of its chrism flows warm through our hearts 

As we meet, its sweet hearth-songs to sing. 
While the Future leads swift, like the stars in the East, 
To the presence of Christ, our King. 



The century's labors are done, and we gather from far and 

from near. 
As a family, scattered by day, gathers home in the gray of the 

twilight. 
The day was too long for our fathers; they are sleeping in quiet 

green places 



Poems on Ohio. 95 

While we who still wake speak together of what has been done 
since the morning. 

No longer the wilderness hedges our dooryard with barriers 
enchanted ; 

No longer the fertile fields lie with tresses sleep-tangled through 
ages. 

Her trees, swept by wind fingers, play the chords of herioc 
endeavor ; 

The bells of her churches chime "Worship," and the bells of 
her schools echo "Wisdom;" 

Her children play, free from all fear, angel-b'rooded in flower- 
strewn pathways. 

We sing you no song of the waves in mid-sea, 

Crowded close by their kin everymore. 
But a song of the breakers that part from their mates 

To dash out their lives on the shore. 
We sing you no song of the waves in mid-sea, 

Rising up, sinking down evermore. 
But a song of the breakers that climb up the sands 

And carve the bleak rocks on the shore; 
The brave artist breakers that carve with themselves. 

And vanish in foam on the shore. 



On Culture's mid-ocean, with purposeless motion 

The waves of life rise but to sink. 
But with impulse resistless of conquest and progress 

Break the waves on Humanity's brink. 
They fling themselves forward with courage sublime. 

They crumble grim Savagery's crest, 
And they carve the high bluffs of a new world's bold shore, 

As their toil-worn forms sink to rest 
In the West 

The receding, elusive West. 



96 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

"THE HARDY PIONEER."^* 

By James Ball Naylor." (i860 — ) 

When the century old was dying 

And the new was waking to birth, 

When the shortening days were flying 

Like the shadows across the earth; 

When the speeding months were a-shiver 
In the fall of the fading year, 

To the banks of the bonny river 
Came the hardy pioneer. 

No castle secure and massy, 

No orchard or field of grain. 
No meadowland smooth and grassy 

Found he in his vast domain; 
For the earth in its pristine glory 

Knew naught of the tiller's ban — 
And the solitude lisped the story 

Of a land unspoiled by man. 

But the woods were his for the asking. 

And the streams at his door, and the fish — 
While the game on the hillsides basking 

Was the fruitful fact of her wish. 
And the nuts, in a fit of vagrance, 

Dropped into his waiting hand — 
And the fall flow'rs shed their fragrance 

Over all the bounteous land, 



74'- 



*This poem was read at Big Bottom Park, Morgan County, Sep- 
tember 30, 1905, on the occasion of the dedication of a monument mark- 
ing the site of the Block House Massacre in 1791. Dr. Naylor's "In 
the Days of Old St. Clair" is an historical novel based on this event. 

"James Ball Naylor, novelist, verse-writer, physician; born Penns- 
ville, Ohio, October 4, 1860; early education in the district schools of 
Morgan County, Stockport High School, and Marietta College. Grad- 
uated, Starling Medical College. Author: Current Coins (verse), 1893; 
Goldenrod and Thistledown (verse), 1896; Ralph Marlowe (novel), 
1901; The Sign of the Prophet (novel), 1901; In the Days of Old St. 
Clair (novel), 1902; Songs From the Heart of Things (verse), 1908. 



Poems on Ohio. 97 

His home was a log-built cottage, 

His hearth was a bed of clay; 
And a pone and a mess of pottage 

Were his at the close of day. 
No longer had he to stifle — 

His domain was the trackless wild; 
And his dogs and his flintlock rifle 

Stood next to his wife and child. 

The sun, in its midday splendor. 

Lent cheer with its kindly light. 
And the moon, wan-faced and tender, 

Smiled down on his cot at night. 
But his heart was a-dread with the vastness, 

And a-chill with the Frost King's breath— 
And afar in the forest fastness 

Lurked the skeleton shade of Death ! 

The old year died — and was shrouded 

In a mantle of spotless white. 
And the pall of his bier beclouded 

The moon and the stars from sight ; 
But the settler, safe in his shelter — 

Where the flames on his hearth leaped high, 
Cared naught for the fearsome skelter 
Of the North Wind moaning by. 

But is that the voice of the mourner 

A-wail through the leafless trees. 
That brings the gaunt hound from his corner — 

And the child to his father's knees? 
Ah, no ! 'Tis no night wind benignant 

That the poor settler knows so well; 
'Tis the sound of the awful, malignant, 

And devilish Indian yell ! 

7 



98 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Small need is there now for reciting — 

Meager need for the poet to tell 
How the brave pioneer fell fighting, 

How his dauntless wife fought and fell. 
Let the autumn breeze whisper the story, 

Till the rustling reeds quiver and wave — 
Till the goldenrod showers its glory 

O'er the pioneer's lowly grave. 

As for us — when the spring flow'rs are peeping 

From the frost-freed mould beneath, 
And the ice-freed river is leaping 

Like a flashing blade from its sheath, 
Let us gather the first wild beauty 

We can find on the brown earth's breast, 
And place it here — as a duty — 

Where the pioneer lies at rest. 

And again — when the summer is dying, 

And the year is growing old. 
When the russet leaves falling and flying 

Fetch a message of coming cold, 
Let us deem it a noble pleasure 

Once more to assemble here 
And bring a late autumn treasure 

To the hardy old pioneer. 



THE PIONEERS. 

By Charles A. Jones. 

Where are the hardy yeomen 
Who battled for this land, 

And trode these hoar old forests 
A brave and gallant band ? 



Poems on Ohio. 99 

Oh, know ye where they slumber? 

No monument appears 
For Freedom's pilgrims to draw nigh 

And hallow with their tears? 
Or were no works of glory 

Done in the olden time? 
And has the West no story 

And deathless deeds sublime? 

Go ask yon shining river 

And it will tell a tale 
Of deeds of noble daring 

Will make thy cheek grow pale : 
Go ask yon smiling valley 

Whose harvest blooms so fair, 
'Twill tell thee a sad story 

Of the brave who slumber there : 
Go ask yon mountain, rearing, 

Its forest crest so high; 
Each tree upon its summit 

Has seen a warrior die. 

They knew no dread of danger 

When rose the Indian's yell; 
Right gallantly they struggled 

Right gallantly they fell : 
From Alleghany's summit 

To the farthest western shore 
These brave men's bones are lying 

Where they perished in their gore; 
And not a single monument 

Is seen in all the land, 
In honor of the memory 

Of that heroic band. 

Their bones were left to whiten 

The spot where they were slain ; 
And were ye now to seek them 

They would be sought in vain. 



100 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

The mountain cat has feasted 

Upon them as they lay; 
Long, long ago they mingled 

Again with other clay : 
Their very names are dying, 

Unconsecrate by fame, 
In oblivion they slumber — 

Our glory and our shame. 



SONG OF THE PIONEERS. 

By William D, Gallagher. 

A song for the early times out West, 

And our green old forest home, 
Whose pleasant memories freshly yet 

Across the bosom come : 
A song for the free and gladsome life, 

In those early days we led, 
With a teeming soil beneath our feet, 

And a smiling Heav'n o'erhead ! 
Oh, the waves of life danced merrily 

And had a joyous flow. 
In the days when we were pioneers. 

Fifty years ago ! 

The hunt, the shot, the glorious chase, 

The captured elk or deer; 
The camp, the big bright fire and thai 

The rich and wholesome cheer: — 
The sweet, sound sleep at dead of night 

By our camp fire blazing high — 
Unbroken by the wolf's long howl 
And the panther springing by. 
Oh, merrily passed the time despite 

Our wily Indian foe. 
In the days when we were pioneers, 

Fifty years ago! 



Poems on Ohio, 101 

We shunned not labor : when 'twas due 

We wrought with right good will; 
And for the homes we won for them 

Our children bless us still. 
We lived not hermit lives, but oft 

In social converse met; 
And fires of love were kindled then 

That burn on warmly yet. 
Oh, pleasantly the stream of life 

Pursued its constant flow, 
In the days when we were pioneers, 

Fifty years ago ! 

We felt that we were fellowmen; 

We felt we were a band, 
Sustain'd here in the wilderness 

By Heaven's upholding hand. 
And when the solemn Sabbath came 

We gathered in the wood 
And lifted up our hearts in prayer 

To God, the only Good. 
Our temples then were earth and sky; 

None others did we know. 
In the days when we were pioneers. 

Fifty years ago ! 

Our forest life was rough and rude. 

And dangers clos'd us round ; 
But here, amid the green old trees 

Freedom was sought and found. 
Oft through our dwellings wintry blasts 

Would rush with shriek and moan ; 
We cared not — though they were but frail, 

We felt they were our own ! 
Oh, free and manly lives we led, 

Mid verdure or mid snow 
In the days when we were pioneers. 

Fifty years ago ! 



102 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

But now our course of life is short; 

And as, from day to day 
We're walking on with halting step 

And fainting by the way, 
Another Land more b'right than this 

To our dim sight appears, 
And on our way to it, we'll soon 

Again be pioneers ! 
Yet while we linger we may all 

A backward glance still throw, 
To the days when we were pioneers. 

Fifty years ago ! 



REFLECTIONS OF AN AGED PIONEER, 

By Thomas H. Shreve. 

The Eternal Sea 
Is surging up before my dreaming mind ; 
And on my ear, grown dull to things of earth. 
Its sounds are audible. My spirit soon 
Shall brave its billows life a trusty bark, 
And seek the shore where shadows never fall. 
Oh, I have lived too long ! Have I not seen 
The suns of four score summers set in gloom? 
Hath not my heart long sepulchered it hopes 
And desolation swept my humble hearth? 
All that I prized have passed away like clouds 
Which float a moment in the twilight sky 
And fade in night. The brow of her I loved 
Is now resplendent in the light of heaven. 
They who flung sunlight on my path in youth 
Have gone before me to the cloudless clime. 
I stand alone like some dim shaft which throv/s 
Its shadow on the desert's waste, while they 



Poems on Ohio. 103 

Who placed it there are gone — or like the tree 
Spared by the ax upon the mountain's cliff, 
Whose sap is dull, while it still wears the hue 
Of life upon its withered limbs. 

Of earth 

And all its scenes my heart is weary now. 

'Tis mine no longer to indulge in what 

Gave life its bliss, jeweled the day with joys, 

And made my slumbers through the night as sweet 

As infant's dreaming on its mother's breast. 

The blood is sluggish in each limb and I 

No longer chase the startled deer or track 

The wily fox or climb the mountain's side. 

My eye is dim and cannot see the stars 

Flash in the stream, or view the gathering storm, 

Or trace the figures of familiar things 

In the light tapestry that decks the sky. 

My ear is dull, the winds autumnal pass 

i\nd wake no answering chime within my breast : 

The songs of birds have lost the whilom spells, 

And water-falls unmurmuring, pass me by. 

'Tis time that I were not. The tide of life 

Bears not an argosy of hope for me, 

And its dull waves surge up against my heart 

Like billows 'gainst a rock. The forests wide 

All trackless as proud Hecla's snowy cliffs, 

From which in youth, I drew my inspiration, 

Have fallen round me ; and the waving fields 

Bow to the reaper where I wildly roamed. 

Cities now rise where I pursued the deer; 

And dust offends me where in happier years. 

I breathed in vigor from untainted gales. 

Nature hath bowed before all conquering Art — 

Hath dropped the reign of empire which she held 

With princely pride when first I met her here. 

The old familiar things to which my heart 

Clung with deep fondness, each and all ?re gone; 



104 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

And I am like the patriarch who stood 

Forgotten at the ahar which he built, 

While crowds rushed by who knew him not and sneered 

At his simplicity. 



SLEEP, OLD PIONEER r« 

By Will Carleton." (1845 — ) 

When the Spring-time touch is lightest, 
When the Summer-eyes are brightest, 

Or the Autumn sings most drear; 
When the Winter's hair is whitest. 

Sleep, old pioneer ! 
Safe beneath the sheltering soil. 

Late enough you crept; 
You were weary of the toil 

Long before you slept. 
Well you paid for every blessing, 

Bought with grief each day of cheer; 
Nature's arms around you pressing. 
Nature's lips your brow caressing, 

Sleep, old pioneer! 

When the hill of toil was steepest, 
When the forest-frown was deepest. 

Poor, but young, you hastened here ; 
Came where solid hope was cheapest — 

Came — a pioneer. 



'""From Will Carleton's Farm Festivals.' Copyright, 1891, 1898, 
by Harper and Brothers." 

"Will Carleton, author, lecturer, was born at Hudson, Mich., Oc- 
tober 21, 1845; graduated at Hillsdale College, 1869. After graduation, 
did newspaper work in Hillsdale, Detroit and Chicago ; became known 
as a poet, and has lectured and given author's readings through the 
United States, Great Britain and continental Europe. Author of Farm 
Ballads, Farm Legends, City Ballads, City Legends, City Festivals, 
Rhymes of Our Planet, The Old Infant, and similar stories ; Young 
Folks' Centennial Rhymes, and Songs of Two Centuries. 



Poems on Ohio. 105 

Made the western jungles view 

Civilization's charms ; 
Snatched a home for yours and you, 

From the lean tree-arms, 
Toil had never ceased to doubt you, — 

Progress' path you helped to clear; 
But Today forgets about you, 
And the world rides on without you — 

Sleep, old pioneer! 

Careless crowds go daily past you, 
Where their future fate has cast you. 

Leaving not a sigh or tear; 
And your wonder-works outlast you — 

Brave old pioneer ! 
Little care the selfish throng 

Where your heart is hid, 
Though they thrive upon the strong, 

Resolute work it did. 

But our memory-eyes have found you. 

And we hold you grandly dear; 
With no work day woes to wound you — 

With the peace of God around you — 

Sleep, old pioneer! 



OHIO'S PILGRIM BAND/« 

By Lewis J. Cist. (1818-1885.)^^ 

New England well may boast 
The band that on her coast, 
Long years ago, 



"This poem can be sung to the tune, America. 

"Lewis J. Cist, son of Charles Cist, who was known by his "Cist's 
Advertiser," was born in the communistic village of Harmony, Penn- 
sylvania. While a child he was brought to Cincinnati, where his edu- 
cation fitted him for the banking business. His verse-writing has con- 



106 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Their Pilgrim anchor cast — 
Their Pilgrim bark made fast — 
'Mid winter's howling blast 
And driven snow. 

Long since hath passed away 
Each Pilgrim, hoar and gray, 

Of that lone band: 
Yet where their ashes lie. 
Sprang seeds that shall not die, 
While ever yon blue sky 

Shall arch our land ! 

Sons of that Pilgrim race 
Were they from whom we trace 

Our Buckeye blood ; 
Ohio's Pilgrim band, 
Lo, on yon shore they stand, 
Their footsteps on the land, 

Their trust in God ! 

Not with the bold array 
Of armies dread, came they 

Proud conquest on ; 
Through a long warfare rude, 
With patient hardihood, 
By toil and strife and blood, 
The soil was won. 

Won from the Redman's lair. 
To be an Eden fair 

To us and ours ; 
Won as the peaceful home 
Of age and beauty's bloom, 
While day shall chase night's gloom, 

While time endures ! 



sisted of "occasional gleanings from such by-nooks and out-of-the-way 
corners of the field of fancy, as has been passed by the more worthy 
and accredited gatherers of the golden-hued harvests of Parnassus. 
A collection of his verses was published in 1845. 



Poems on Ohio. 107 

God of the high and free! 
Our fathers' God to thee 

Our thanks are given ; 
Thanks for the true and brave — 
Sires all that sons might crave — 
Their forms are in the grave, 

Their souls in heaven ! 



THE FOUNDERS OF OHIO (1788). 
By Dr. W. H. Venable. 

The footsteps of a hundred years 

Have echoed since o'er Braddock's Road, 
Bold Putnam and the Pioneers 

Led History the way they strode. 

On wild Monongahela's stream 

They launched the Mayflower of the West, 
A perfect state their civic dream, 

A new New World their pilgrim quest. 

When April robed the Buckeye trees, 

Muskingum's bosky shore they trod ; 

They pitched their tent, and on the breeze 
Flung freedom's star-flag, thanking God. 

As glides the Oyo's solemn flood 

So fleeted their eventful years ; 

Resurgent in their children's blood, 
They still live on — the Pioneers. 

Their fame shrinks not to names and dates. 
On votive stone the prey of time ; 

Behold where monumental States 
Immortalize their lives sublime. 



108 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

SETTLERS' SONG.«« 

''When rambling o'er these mountains 

And rocks, where ivies grow 
Thick as the hairs upon your head, 

'Mongst which you cannot go ; 
Great storm of snow, cold winds that Mow, 

We scarce can undergo ; 
Says I, my boys, we'll leave this place 

For the pleasant Ohio. 

Our precious friends that stay behind, 

We're sorry now to leave; 
But if they'll stay and break their shins, 

For them we'll never grieve ; 
Adieu, my friends ! come on, my dears, 

This journey we'll forego, 
And settle Licking Creek, 

In yonder Ohio." 



EIGHTY-SEVEN. 

William H. Venable. 

As mighty heart in a giant's breast. 

With rhythmic beat. 
Sends marching from brain to feet, 
The crimson vigor of creative blood. 
So, in the bosom of the brawny West, 
So, in the stalwart breast of the Nation, 
Throbs the Great Ordinance, — a heart, 
A vital and organic part, 



*'In 1804 a company was formed in Granville, Mass., with the in- 
tention of effecting a settlement in Ohio. The project was enthusias- 
tically received. The above song was composed and sung to the tune 
"Pleasant Ohio." This company made its settlement at Granville, Lick- 
ing County, Ohio. 



Poems on Ohio. 109 

Propelling by its strong pulsation 
The unremitting stream and flood 
Of wholesome influences, that give , i,, 

Unto the body politic 
The elements and virtues quick .^-^- 

Whereby Republics live. ^ 



BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT.«^ 

A Ballad. 

Let us mind the tenth day of October, 
Seventy-four, which caused woe ; 
The Indian savages they did cover 
The pleasant banks of the Ohio. 

The battle beginning in the morning — 
Throughout the day it lasted sore, 
Till the evening of shades were returning 
Upon the banks of the Ohio. 

Judgment proceeds to execution — 
Let fame throughout all dangers go; 
Our heroes fought with resolution, 
Upon the banks of the Ohio. 

Seven score lay dead and wounded, 
Of champions that did face the foe; 
By which the heathen were confounded 
Upon the banks of the Ohio. 

Colonel Lewis^^ and some noble captains, 
Did down to death like Uriah go; 
Alas ! their heads wound up in napkins 
Upon the banks of the Ohio. 



"This ballad was sung for many years after the battle by the 
people of Virginia. 

"Colonel Charles Lewis, brother of the commander, General An- 
drew Lewis, was among those slain in the battle. 



110 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Kings lamented their mighty fallen 
Upon the mountains of Gilboa ; 
And now we mourn for brave Hugh Allen®* 
Far from the banks of the Ohio. 

Oh ! bless the mighty King of Heaven, 
For all his wondrous works below, 
Who hath to us the victory given 
Upon the banks of the Ohio.®* 



SINCLAIRE'S DEFEAT.®^ 

A Ballad. 

'Twas November the fourth, in the year of ninety-one, 
We had a sore engagement near to Fort Jefferson ; 
Sinclaire was our commander, which may remembered be, 
For there we left nine hundred men in t' West'n Ter'tory. 

At Bunker's Hill and Quebeck, where many a hero fell 
Likewise at Long Island (it is I the truth can tell) 
But such a dreadful carnage may I never see again 
As hap'ned near St. Mary's upon the river plain. 

Our army was attacked just as the day did dawn, 
And soon were overpowered and driven from the lawn. 
They killed Major Ouldham, Levin and Briggs likewise, 
And horrid yells of savages resounded through the skies. 

Major Butler was wounded in the very second fire; 
His manly bosom swell'd with rage when forced to retire; 
And as he lay in anguish and scarcely could he see. 
Exclaimed, *'Ye hounds of hell, O, revenged I will be !" 



^Hugh Allen was a Virginia Lieutenant. 

**The Battle of Point Pleasant has officially been declared "The 
First Battle of the Revolution." 

*^This battle was fought in Mercer County. The Publications of 
the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society give replete accounts of 
the contest. 



Poems on Ohio. Ill 

We had not been long broken when General Butler found 
Himself so badly wounded, was forced to quit the ground, 
"My God!" says, ''what shall we do, we're wounded every man? 
Go charge them, valiant heroes, and beat them if you can.'* 

He leaned his back against a tree, and there resigned his breath. 
And like a valiant soldier sunk in the arms of death ; 
When blessed angels did await, his spirit to convey ; 
And unto the celestial fields he quickly bent his way. 

We charged again with courage firm, but soon again gave 

ground, 
The war-whoop then redoubled as did the foes around. 
They killed Major Ferguson, which caused his men to cry, 
•'Our only safety is in flight, or fighting here to die." 

"Stand to your gims," says vaHant Ford, "let's die upon them 

here 
Before we let the sav'ges know we ever harbored fear." 
Our cannon-balls exhausted, and artill'ry-men all slain, 
Obliged were our musket-men the en'my to sustain. 

Yet three hours more we fought them, and then were forc'd to 

yield, 
When three hundred bloody warriors lay stretch'd upon the 

field. 
Says Colonel Gibson to his men, "My boys be not dismayed; 
I'm sure that true Virginians were never yet afraid. 

Ten thousand deaths Fd rather die, than they should gain the 

field !" 
With that he got a fatal shot, which caused him to yield. 
Says Major Clark, "My heroes, I can here no longer stand, 
We'll strive to form in order, and retreat the best we can." 

The word, "Retreat," being passed around there was a dismal 

cry, 
Then helter-shelter, through the woods like wolves and sheep 

they fly. 
This well-appointed army, who but a day before 
Defied and braved all danger, had like a cloud pass'd o'er. 



112 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Alas ! the dying and wounded, how dreadful was the thought, 
To the tomahawk and scalping-knife, in mis'ry are brought. 
Some had a thigh and some an arm broke on the field that day, 
Who writhed in torments at the stake, to close the dire affray. 

To mention our brave officers is what I wish to do ; 

No sons of Mars e'er fought more brave, or with more courage 

true, 
To Captain Bradford, I belonged, in his artillery. 
He iell that day amongst the slain ; a valiant man was he. 



JOHN CADE'S SONG.«« 

(Air, Anacreon in Heaven.) 

By Andrew Coffinberry. 

'Tn the heat of the combat where bravest men fight. 
Our gallant old leader seeks danger and glory; 
His prowess in arms, his bold daring and might. 

Shall pass down forever in song and in story: 
The sound of his name, in a halo of fame, 
The bosom of ages unborn shall inflame, 
Wherever the star-spangled banner shall wave 
O'er a land ruled by freemen, a home for the brave. 

"Alad Anthony's nerve to the savage is known ; 

They openly dare not in fair field to meet him. 
But under close covert the demons unshown. 

Still strive to decoy, to delude and defeat him. 
But vigilant Wayne in forest or plain, 
His rich ripened laurels will ever sustain, 
And whither soever his banner shall wave, 
May unfading glory be won by the brave. 



^'^John Cade is one of the characters of Coffinberr3^"s 'Torest 
Rangers," and when "on the march" he is supposed to sing this song. 



Poems on Ohio. 113 

""'The renegade Girty though prowling around, 

His dark soul yet brooding o'er bloodshed and plunder, 
Is quaking with fear at the heart thrilling sound 

Of our trumpets and drums that in voices of thunder, 
Announce to the slave his approach to the grave. 
From the march of the valiant, the daring and brave, i 

With their star-spangled banner that e'er long shall wave 
O'er all the green west as a home for the brave. 

*'Our cup of forbearance is full to the brim, 

Our innocents' blood for deep vengeance is calling; 
Miami's pure floods all encrimsoned shall swim, 

With the best blood of those that for ours are prowling. 
But where Wayne shall lead we follow with speed, 
And dauntlessly triumph in each daring deed, 
That shall hallow the banner still destined to wave 
O'er the land of bold daring, the home of the brave. 



THE DESERTED ISLE.«^ 

By Mrs. Harman Blennerhassett.®* 

Like mournful echo from the silent tomb, 

That pines away upon the midnight air. 

Whilst the pale moon breaks out, with fitful gloom; 

Fond memory turns with sad but welcome care, 

To scenes of desolation and despair ; 



"Mrs. Blennerhassett wrote in 1824 while living in Montreal a vol- 
ume of verse, "Widow of the Rock and Other Poems." "The Deserted 
Isle" was one of the poems. 

**Mrs. Blennerhasset was Margaret Agnew, daughter of Captain 
Agnew, of the British Navy and Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of 
Man. After the destruction of her island home, she embarked with 
her children on a flat-boat and descended the Ohio where she joined 
her husband. Her remaining life was a sad wandering one. She died 
in 1842 in a dreary tenement house, a broken-hearted woman. A full 
account of the Blennerhassett history is to be found in Vol. I. of the 
Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications. 
8 



114 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications^ 

Once bright with all that beauty could bestow, 
That peace could shed or youthful fancy know. 

To the fair isle, reverts the pleasing dream ; 

Again thou risest, in thy green attire, 

Fresh, as at first ; thy blooming graces seem : — 

Thy groves, thy fields, their wonted sweets respire; 

Again thou 'rt all my heart could e'er desire. 

Oh ! Why, dear isle, art thou not still my own ? 

Thy charms could then for all my griefs atone. 

The stranger that descends Ohio's stream, 
Charmed with the beauteous prospects that arise^ 
Marks the soft isles that, 'neath the glittering beam. 
Dance with the wave and mingle with the skies ; 
Sees, also, one that now in ruin lies. 
Which erst like fairy queen, towered o'er the rest,. 
In every native charm, by culture dressed. 

There rose the seat, where once in pride of life. 
My eye could mark the queenly river's flow. 
In summer's calmness, or in winter's strife. 
Swollen with rains, or battling with the snow. 
Never again my heart such joy shall know 
Havoc and ruin, rampant war, have passed 
Over that isle, with their destroying blast. 

The black'ning fire has swept throughout her halls, 

The winds fly whistling o'er them, and the wave 

No more in spring floods, o'er the sand beach crawls^ 

But furious drowns in one o'erwhelming grave. 

Thy hallowed haunts it watered as a slave. 

Drive on, destructive flood ! and ne'er again. 

On that devoted isle let man remain. 

Too many blissful moments there I've known; 
Too many hopes have there met their decay; 
Too many feelings now forever gone, 



Poems on Ohio. 115 

To wish that thou could'st e'er again display 
The joyful coloring of thy prime array: 
Buried with thee, let them remain a blot, 
With thee, their sweets, their bitterness forgot. 

And, oh ! that I could wholly wipe away 

The memory of the ills that worked thy fall; 

The memory of that all-eventful day, 

When I returned and found my own fair hall 

Held by the infuriate populace in thrall; — ^® 

My own fireside blockaded by a band 

That once found food and shelter of my hand. 

My children (Oh! a mother's pangs forbear; 
Nor strike again that arrow to my soul;) 
Clasping the ruffians in suppliant prayer; 
To free their mother from unjust control, 
While with false crimes and imprecations foul, 
The wretched, vilest refuse of the earth. 
Mock jurisdiction held around my. hearth. 

Sweet isle ! methinks I see thy bosom torn ; 

Again behold the ruthless rabble throng, 

That wrought destruction taste must ever mourn. 

Alas ! I see thee now^ — shall see thee long ; 

But ne'er shall bitter feelings urge the wrong, 

That to a mob, would give the censure due 

To those that arm.ed the plunder-greedy crew. 

Thy shores are warmed by bounteous suns in vain, 

Columbia ! — if spite and envy spring, 

To blot the beauty of mild nature's reign : 

The European stranger who would fling. 

O'er tangled woods, refinement's polishing, 

May find, expended every plan of taste. 

His works by ruffians rendered doubly waste. 



*°This refers to the action of the Wood County, Virginia, Militia, 
that destroyed the Blennerhassett home. 



116 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 



90 



THE HILLS OF OHIO. 

The hills of Ohio, how sweetly they rise, 
In the beauty of nature to blend with the skies ; 
With fair azure outline, and tall ancient trees^ 
Ohio, my country, I love thee for these. 

The homes of Ohio, free, fortuned, and fair, 
Full many hearts treasure a sister's love there; 
E'en more than thy hill-sides or streamlets they please, 
Ohio, my country, I love thee for these. 

God shield thee, Ohio, dear land of my birth, 
And thy children that wander afar o'er the earth; 
My country thou art, where'er my lot's cast, 
Take thou to thy bosom my ashes at last. 



A PARTY SONG.^^ 

"Arise, my true love, and present me your hand. 

And we'll march in procession for a far distant land; 

Where the girls will card and spin. 

And the boys will plow and sow, 

And we'll settle on the banks of the pleasant Ohio.'* 



**'This song with the music appeared in a music book, 'The Key of 
the West." The air for it may be found in Howe's "Ohio," I., 296. 

®This is the verse sung in some of the games of young people at 
their parties in the east. It is indicative of the general attitude of the 
people regarding the new land, Ohio. 



Poems on Ohio. 117 

SANDUSKY.«2 

By Judge Elisha W. Rowland. ( — 1854.)^^ 
There is a prayer now going round 

Which I dislike to hear, 
To change the name of this old town 

I hold so very dear. 

They pray the court to alter it, 

I pray to God they won't ; 
And let it stand Sandusky yet 

And not John C. Fremont. 

Sandusky is a pleasant name; 

'Tis short and easy spoken; 
Descending to us by a chain 

That never should be broken. 

Then let us hand it down the stream 

Of Time to after ages, 
And Sandusky be the theme 

Of future bards and sages. 



92'- 



This poem was a remonstrance against a petition to the County^ 
Court of Sandusky to alter the name of Lower Sandusky to that of 
Fremont. It was read to the Court by Rutherford B. Hayes, then a 
young attorney. 

®^Judge Rowland came to Lower Sandusky, to live, about 1819. He 
had served as a soldier in the War of 1812 and was in the Battle of 
Lundy's Lane. By trade he was a carpenter and cabinet maker and 
in 1819, in partnership with Thomas L. Hawkins, he constructed a re- 
markable river craft, to ply the waters of Sandusky River and Bay, to 
which was given the classic name of Pegassus. He held the office of 
County Commissioner and Judge of the Common Pleas Court. He was 
a man of ability, quite eccentric in character and noted for his witty 
speeches and humorous poetry. 



118 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Won't the old honest Sagums rise, 
And say to us pale faces, 

"Do you our ancient name despise, 
And change our resting places? 

Our fathers slumbered here; 

Their spirits cry, "Oh, don't 
Alter the name to us so dear 

And substitute Fremont !" 

Therefore my prayer shall still remain, 
Until my voice grows husky; 

Oh, change the people not the name 
Of my old home, Sandusky ! 



THE CUMBERLAND STAGE. 

James Ball Naylor. 

Not in your day or mine have we known it, my boy ; 
But your grandfather counted it part of the joy 
Of the Volume of Life — and a paramount page 
Was the one with the cut of the Cumberland Stage ! 
Over hilltops of green, over highroads of brown, 
At the close of each day it rolled into the town ; 
And with rumble and rattle and clatter and din, 
It drew up to the door of the little red inn. 

To the crack of the whip and the blare of the horn, 

The four horses — sleek-sided with clover and corn ! — 

All indulged in a dance, as the driver in pride 

Touched the tip of his lash to each satiny hide ; 

And the mud-colored wheels, as they wabbled and whirled, 

Brought a promise of sights from the far-away world — 

So each youngster in town, with a shrug and a grin. 

Sought a place near the door of the little red inn. 



Poems on Ohio. 119 

The old Cumberland Stage! Its great body or bed — 
Of a weather-dimmed yellow and weather-dulled red ! — 
Groaned a grievous complaint, as it teetered and swung 
To the jolt of the wheels and the jerk of the tongue; 
And inside were the travelers — famed and unfamed ! — 
While atop were the bundles and budgets they claimed; 
• And the whole of those travelers, many or more, 
Tumbled out at the little red inn's open door. 

And your grandfather, lad — for your grandfather then 
Was a sturdy-limbed, flaxen-haired urchin of ten ! — 
Gaped and stared at those travelers, master and dame, 
Wond'ring whither they journeyed and wherefore they came; 
And — as boys have e'er done and as boys will repeat ! — 
He was over their luggage and under their feet, 
With his heart swollen big with the hope he might win 
A few coins, at the door of the little red inn. 

Ah, those travelers ! Wondrous and varied the store 
Of belonging they had and rich garments they wore ! 
There were band-boxes, carpet-bags, hair-covered trunks, 
Piled up higgledy-piggledy — hummocks and chunks ; 
Satin gowns and slat bonnets and snuff-colored suits — 
Baggy coats, and tight trousers strapped under the boots 1 
And your grandfather marveled — but couldn't begin 
To account how all lodged in that little red inn ! 

The old Cumberland Stage! At the first peep of day — 
Whether winter was sullen or summ.er was gay ! — 
It came round to the little red inn's open door, 
And there took up its load of the ev'ning before ; 
And the fat boniface, with a chuckle as shrill 
As the crow of a cock, and a royal good-will, 
Shook each traveler's hand and acknowledged him kin 
And invited him back to the little red inn ! 



.120 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

It was off — it was off! In the gray of the morn, 
To the snap of the whip and the toot of the horn, 
The old Cumberland Stage lumbered out of the town — 
Toward the hilltops of green and the highroads of brown. 
It was gone — it was gone ! But the listening ear 
Caught the sound of the horn rising vibrant and clear, 
And the far-distant rattle and clatter and din — 
And alone and asleep was the little red inn ! 



"OLD BETSY." '' 

By Thomas L. Hawkins.*® 

Hail ! thou old friend, of Fort MeGee 
Little did I expect again to see, 
And hear thy voice of victory, 
Thou defender of Ohio ! 



**This famous gun that so valiantly defended Ft. Stephenson in 
1813 was brought back to Fremont in 1852. This was "Old Betsey's" 
Home Coming and there was a great celebration upon her arrival. This 
poem was read on that occasion by by Rev. Thomas L Hawkins, who 
had participated in the battle forty years before. 

^''Thomas L. Hawkins was a highly esteemed citizen of Lower 
Sandusky, now Fremont, in the first half of the last century. He was 
a many-sided and interesting character, a soldier, a skilled mechanic, 
business man, public officer, preacher, artist, dramatist and philosopher. 
He served in the War of 1812 and was Keeper of the Magazine at 
Fort Meigs, during the siege, and was, later, in the battle of Lundy's 
Lane. At the close of the war he was placed in charge of the govern- 
ment property at Fort Stephenson. 

In 1819 the young men of Lower Sandusky acted the play, "She 
Stoops to Conquer." Hawkins wrote the prologue, in which he pre- 
dicted the use of railroads, steamboats and telegraphs. He painted the 
scenery and acted the principal parts. 

In 1853 he published at Columbus, Ohio, a volume of "Poetic 
Miscellany and World's Wonder." 



Poems on Ohio. 127 

I wonder who it is was that sought thee, 
To victory's ground again hath brought thee 
From strangers' hands at length hath caught thee; 
He is a friend to great Ohio ! 

He is surely worthy of applause, 
To undertake so good a cause, 
Although a pleader of her laws, 
And statutes of Ohio. 

What shame thy blockhouse is not standing, 
Thy pickets as at first commanding, 
Protecting Sandusky's noble landing, 
The frontier of Ohio ! 

Thy pickets, alas ! are all unreared. 
No faithful sentinel on guard. 
Nor band of soldiers well prepared. 
Defending great Ohio. 

Where have the upthrown ditches gone, 
By British cannon rudely torn ? i 

Alas ! with grass they are o'ergrown, 
Neglected by Ohio. 

O tell me where thy chieftains all — 
Croghan, Dudley, Miller, Ball, 
Some of whom I know did fall 
In defending of Ohio. 

Canst thou not tell how Proctor swore. 
When up yon matted turf he tore, { 

Which shielded us from guns a score, 
He poured upon Ohio? 

And how Tecumseh lay behind you ; 
With vain attempts he tried to blind you, 
And unprepared, he'd find you, 
And lead vou from Ohio. 



122 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Perhaps like Hamlet's ghost, youVe come, 
This day to celebrate the fame 
Of Groghan's honored, worthy name, 
The hero of Ohio. 

I greet thee ! Thou art just in time 
To tell of victory most sublime, 
Though told in unconnected rhyme; 
Thou art welcome in Ohio. 

But since thou canst thyself speak well, 
Now let thy thundering voice tell 
What bloody carnage then befell 
The foes of great Ohio. 

(And then she thundered loud.) 



THE OLD NATIONAL ROAD.»« 

By James Ball Naylor. 

The old National Road! What a play of romance 
Is called up by the name ; and the shadows advance 
From their corners obscure at the back of the stage. 
And evolve into shapes — into scenes of an age 
Whose sweet graces were too quaint and homely to last. 
And are gone with the roses and rue of the past ! 
Let the bard, to the strains of his lyre, frame an ode 
To that Highway of Hope — the old National Road ! 



**In the initial number of The Ohio Magazine, July, 1906, this 
splendid poem of Dr. Naylor, "The Buckeye Poet," appeared. A splen- 
did account of the Old National Road can be found in Volume IX of 
the Ohio Historical Publications. It was written by Archer Butler Hul- 
iDert, who is an authority on the roadways of America. 



Poems on Ohio. 123^ 

From the sweet-smelling Maryland meadows it crawled, 
Through the forest primeval, o'er hills granite — walled ; 
On and up, up and on, 'till it conquered the crest 
Of the mountains — and w^ound away into the West. 
'Twas the Highway of Hope ! And the pilgrims who trod 
It were Lords of the Woodland and Sons of the Sod ; 
And the hope of their hearts was to win an abode 
At the end — the far end of the National Road. 

The old National Road ! It stretched on — ever on, 
Toward the land w^here humanity's vanguard had gone ; 
Past the spring on the mountain, the rill in the dale — 
By the hut on the hillside, the inn in the vale. 
And the beings it loved and the people it knew 
Were untutored and primitive, kindly and true ; 
And the face of the midsummer sun ever glowed 
With a smile for the faithful old National Road. 

From the foot of the mountain still westward it trailed,. 
Till the footprints of settlements faltered — and failed; 
Under skies that w^ere blustering, skies that were bland, 
Over turbulent streams that no bridge had e'er spanned 
But the Rainbow of Promise ; and ended its quest 
Where the birds and the brooks of Ohio sang — ''Rest."" 
''Equal chances and favors for all !" was the code 
Of the open and honest old National Road. 

The old National Road ! In the heat and the cold, 
There the emigrant's canvas — topped vehicle rolled ; 
'Twas a great Conestoga — its Vv^heels groaning sore 
Of the journey they made and the burden they bore- 
Uncomplaining the lank oxen sw^aggered and swung, 
Under yoke, at the sides of the teetering tongue ; 
And the family cow, poor and patient w^as towed 
At the end of a rope — down the National Road. 

From the close-covered depths of the big wagon-bed 
Peeped out laddie and lassie and tiny towhead — 



124 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Half a dozen at least, for the pioneer's wife 

Thought to people the land was a part of her life ; 

And they huddled and whispered, and clamored and yelled. 

At the noises they heard and the sights they beheld, 

While the father and mother contentedly strode 

Toward their far-away home — down the National Road. 

The old National Road ! 'Twas a broad avenue 

Leading straight to the wealth the West offered in lieu 

Of the barren reward the East promised to give — 

Grim compulsion to toil and permission to live; 

So the gate of the mountains saw thousands pass through. 

Bearing on, ever on, from the old to the new. 

And our best blood today is the red blood that flowed 

In the veins of the Man of the National Road ! 



THE OLD RIVER BRIDGE. 

By James Ball Naylor. 

(Read at the dedication of the Malta-McConnellsville steel bridge, 
July 8th, 1902. The new steel bridge superseded the old wooden toll 
bridge built in 1867). 

The old river bridge, grown decrepit and gray, 

In the warfare of years has, alas, passed away; 

For Time the remorseless has triumphed at last — 

And the faithful old bridge is a part of the past. 

Like a warrior it stood, with its feet in the tide 

And its lean arms outstretched to the bridegroom and bride 

Saying : ''Lovers unwitting, God's will has been done ! 

Fve blessed ye and bound ye ; ye twain are made one !'' 

When the elements battled and thunderbolts fell — 
Like arrows, God-flung, at the ramparts of hell; 
When a crash of the storm sent a chill to the blood, 
And the highway of man was the gateway of flood ; 



Poems on Ohio. 125 

Then the sturdy old bridge strained its sinews of wood, 

And stiffened, and quivered, and tottered — but stood ! 

And the message it sent o'er the turbulent tide 

Was : "I've bound ye and blessed ye ; no storm shall divide !" 

At night — in mid-winter when snowdrifts lay deep, 
And the wind was awake and the world was asleep ; 
Or in summer, when hill-top and housetop and stream 
Were aglint with the touch of the moon's paly beam ; 
Then the old wooden bridge, that no ill might betide, 
Kept guard o'er the slumbering bridegroom and bride. 
And the words that it murmured at daybreak's release 
Were: "I've guarded and kept ye; sleep on — sleep in peace!'* 

Ah, the old river-bridge felt the terrors and tears 
Of the twain it had joined — all their sorrows and fears ! 
And it also, partook of their pastimes and joy — 
Knew their frolicsome girls and their rollicksome boys ! 
And its rigid, impassive, old features of oak 
Went aquiver with smiles, at the crack of a joke 
Or the trill of a laugh ; and it whispered : "Ah me ! 
May their lives full of pleasure and happiness be !" 

But there came in the year of the century's birth — 

Sent by Time the remorseless, the ruler of earth — 

A panoplied knight in a harness of steel ; 

And the old wooden bridge felt the conqueror's heel ! 

Knowing well that its battles and triumphs were o'er — 

That the friends it had loved would now need it no more, 

It sank down to rest with the tremulous sigh : 

"I've blessed ye and served ye ; God keep ye — Goodbye !'* 



126 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 



LEWIS WETZEL. 

By Florus B. Plimpton. (183 
I. 

Stout-hearted Lewis Wetzel 
Rode down the river shore, 

The wilderness behind him 

And the wilderness before. 

He rode in the cool of morning, 
Humming a dear old tune. 

Into the heart of the greenwood. 
Into the heart of June. 



He needs no guide in the forest 
More than the hunter bees ; 

His guides are the cool green mosses 
To the northward of the trees. 

Nor fears he the foe whose footstep 
Is light as the summer air — 

The tomahawk hangs in his shirt belt, 
And the scalp-knife glitters there ! 

The stealthy Wyandots tremble 

And speak his name with fear, 

For his aim is sharp and deadly, 
And his rifle's ring is clear. 



"Florus B. Plimton was born in Palmyra, Portage County, Ohio. 
His father was a Methodist minister, who came to the Western Reserve 
from Connecticut. He was educated at Allegheny College, Meadville, 
Pennsylvania. His life was spent in journalistic work, being connected 
with various newspapers in New York, Michigan and Ohio. He was 
also a contributor to many of the magazines of the country. Poetry 
writing has been to him much as a recreation. 



Poems on Ohio. 127 

So pleasantly rode he onward, 

Pausing to hear the stroke 
Of the settler's ax in the forest, 

Or the crash of a falling oak; 

Pausing at times to gather 

The wild fruit overhead 
(For in this rarest of June days 

The service-berries were red.) 

And as he grasped the full boughs 

To bend them down amain, 
The dew and the blushing berries 

Fell like an April rain. 

The partridge drums on the dry oak, 

The croaking corby caws, 
The black-bird sings in the spice bush, 

And the robin in the haws. 

And as they chatter and twitter, 

The wild birds seem to say, 
"Do not harm us, good Lewis, 

And you shall have luck today." 

So, pleasantly rode he onward 

Till the shadows marked the noon. 
Into the leafy greenwood 

Into the heart of June. 

II. 

Now speed thee on, good Lewis, 

For the sultry sun goes down. 
The hill-side shadows lengthen. 

And the eastern sky is brown. 



328 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications, 

Now speed thee where the river 
Creeps slow in the covers cool, 

And the lilies nod their white bells 
By the margin of the pool. 

He crossed the silver Kaska 

With its chestnut-covered hills 

And the fetlocks of his roan steed 
Were wet in a hundred rills. 

"And there," he cried in transport, 
"The alders greenest grow, 

Where the wild stag comes for water, 
And her young fawn leads the doe." 

Grasping his trusty rifle, 

He whistled his dog behind, 

Then stretched his finger upward 
To know how set the wind. 

O steady grew the strong arm 

And the hunter's dark eye keen. 

As he saw the branching antlers 

Through the alder thickets green. 

A sharp, clear ring through the greenwood. 
And with mighty leap and bound, 

The pride of the western forest 
Lay bleeding on the ground. 

Then out from the leafy shadow 
A stalwart hunter sprang, 

And his unsheathed scalp-knife glittering 
Against his rifle rang. 



Poems on Ohio. 129 

"And who are you?" quoth Lewis, 

''That comes 'twixt me and mine?" 

And his cheek was flushed with anger, 
As a Bacchant's flushed with wine. 

"What boots that to thy purpose?" 

The stranger hotly said; 
"I marked the prize when Hving, 

And it is mine when dead." 

Then their sinewy arms were grappled, 

And they wrestled long and well, 
Till stretched along the greensward 

The humbled hunter fell. 

Upspringing like a panther 

In pain and wrath he cried, 
"Though your arms may be the stronger, 

Our rifles shall decide." 

"Stay, stranger," Quoth good Lewis, 

"The chances are not even ; 
Who challanges my rifle 

Should be at peace with heaven. 

"Now take this rod of alder, 

And set by yonder tree, 
A hundred yards beyond me. 

And wait you there and see. 

"For he who dares such peril 

But lightly holds his breath; 
May his unshrived soul be ready 

To welcome sudden death !" 



130 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

So the stranger took the alder 

And wondering stood to view, 

While Wetzel's aim grew steady, 
And he cut the rod in two. 

''By heaven" ! the stranger shouted, 

''One only, far or nigh, 
Hath arks like the lithe young ash tree, 

Or half so keen of eye. 

And that is Lewis Wetzel :" 

Quoth Lewis, "Here he stands ;" 

So they spoke in gentle manner, 

And clasped their friendly hands. 

Then talked the mighty hunters, 
Till the summer dew descends. 

And they who met as foemen 

Rode out of the greenwood friends — 

Rode out of the leafy greenwood 
As rose the yellow moon 

And the purple hills lay pleasantly 
In the softened air of June. 



AT THE GRAVE OF SIMON KENTON.«« 

By William Hubbard. (1821-1872.)®^ 

Tread lightly, this is hallowed ground ! — tread reverently here ! 

Beneath this sod in silence sleeps the brave old Pioneer, 

Who never quailed in darkest hour, whose heart ne'er felt a 

fear — 
Tread lightly then, and here bestow the tribute of a tear. 



®*The grave of Simon Kenton is about five miles northeast of 
Bellefontaine. 

'^^William Hubbard was born in the village of West Liberty, Logan 
County, Ohio. His father died when he was a mere child and his edu- 



Poems on Ohio. 131 

Ah, can this be the spot where sleeps the bravest of the brave? 
Is this rude slag the only mark of Simon Kenton's grave? 
These fallen palings, are they all his ingrate country gave 
To one who periled life so oft her homes and hearts to save ? 

Long, long ago in manhood's prime, when all was wild and drear, 
They bound the hero to a stake of savage torment here — 
Unblanched and firm, his soul disdained a supplicating tear — 
A thousand demons would not daunt the Western Pioneer. 

They tied his hands, Mazeppa-like, and set him on a steed, 
Wild as the mustang of the plains — and, mocking bade him 

speed ! 
Then sped the courser like the wind, of curb and bit all freed, 
O'er flood and field, o'er hill and dale wherever chance might 

lead! 

But firm in every trial hour, his heart was still the same — 

Still throbbed with self-reliance strong which danger could not 

tame. 
Yet fought he not that he might win the splendor of a fame, 
Which would, in ages long to come, shed glory on his name; 

He fought because he loved the land where first he saw the 

light — 
He fought because his soul was true, and idolized the right; 
And ever in the fiercest and the thickest of the fight 
The dusk and swarthy foeman felt the terror of his might. 



cation devolved entirely upon his mother, a woman of strong character. 
Logan County was still a pioneer section in those days, and the log 
school house was the only means of education beyond the home training. 
When eleven years old he was placed in a printing office and the re- 
mainder of his life was spent not very far away from ink and type. 
He taught school for a time, studied law, was admitted to the bar and 
served two terms as Prosecuting Attorney of his county. But his 
tastes were literary and as editor of a paper and author of verse he 
is best to be remembered. 



132 Ohio ArcJi. and Hist. Society Publications. 

Are these his countrymen who dwell where long ago he came? 
Are these the men who glory in the splendor of his fame? 
And can they not afford to give a stone to bear his name? 
O never let them more presume the hero's dust to claim! 



APPLESEED JOHN. 

By Lydia Maria Child. (1802-1880.)^^*' 

Old Johnny was bent well-nigh double 
With years of toil and care and trouble, 
But his large old heart oft felt the need 
Of doing for others some kindly deed. 

*'But what can I do ?" old Johnny said ; 
I, who work so hard for daily bread? 
It takes heaps of money to do so much good, 
I am far too poor to do as I would." 

The old man sat deeply thinking awhile, 
Then over his features gleamed a smile, 
While he clapped his hands with childish glee 
And said to himself, ''There's a way for me !" 

So he went to work with might and main, 
But told to none the plan of his brain. 
He took stale apples in payment for chores 
And carefully cut from them all the cores. 



""Lydia Marie Child is the Philothea of Lowell's "Fable for Critics." 
She was born at Medford, Mass., and died in Wayland, Mass. As a 
writer she was noted for her support of the Abolition movement. From 
1840 till 1843 she was editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard. 
Among her works may be mentioned, The Rebels, 1822 ; The Amer- 
ican Frugal Housewife, 1829; Flowers for Children, 1844-46. 



Poems on Ohio. 133 

When he filled his bag he wandered away 

And no man saw him for many a day. 

With the well strapped bag o'er his shoulder flung 

He wandered along and whistled or sung. 

He seemed to roam with no object in view, 
Like one who has nothing on earth to do, 
But rambling thus o'er prairies wide 
He paused sometimes and his bag untied. 

His sharp-pointed cane deep holes would bore 
And in every hole he placed a core; 
He covered them well and left them there 
In keeping with sunshine, rain and air. 

Sometimes for days he waded through grass 
And saw never a living creature pass, 
Though oft when sinking to sleep in the dark 
He heard owls hoot and prairie dogs bark. 

But sometimes butterflies perched on his thumbs 
And birds swarmed round him to pick up his crumbs ; 
They knew he carried no arrow or gun 
And never did mischief to any one. 

For he was tender to all dumb things 
That crept on the earth or soared on wings 
He stepped aside lest a worm should die, 
And never had heart to hurt a fly. 

Sometimes an Indian of sturdy limb 
Came striding along and walked with him 
Whichever had food shared with the other, 
As if he had met a hungry brother. 

When the Indian saw how the bag was filled, 
And noticed the holes that the white man drilled, 
He thought to himelf 'twas a silly plan 
To be planting seed for some future man. 



134 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Sometimes a log cabin came in view 
Where John was sure to find jobs to do, 
By which he gained stores of bread and meat 
And welcome rest for his weary feet. 

He hilled potatoes and hoed the corn, 

And mended shoes that were sometimes worn; 

He taught the babies to use their legs, 

And helped the boys to hunt for eggs. 

He was so hearty at work or play 
That every one urged a longer stay. 
But he replied, "I have something to do. 
And I must go on to carry it through." 

The boys who were sure to follow him round 
Soon found what it was he put in the ground; 
So as time passed and he traveled on 
All the folks called his Appleseed John. 

When he used up the whole of his store 
He went to cities and worked for more; 
Then oif he marched to the wilds again 
And planted seeds in prairie and glen. 

In cities some said the man was crazy; 
Others said. No, he was only lazy. 
But he took no notice of gibes and jeers. 
He knew he was working for future years. 

He knew that trees would soon abound, 
Where once a tree could never be found ; 
That a flickering play of light and shade 
Would make dancing shadows on the glade. 

That blossoming boughs would form full bowers, 
And sprinkle the earth with rosy showers. 
And the little seeds his hands had spread 
Would form ripe apples when he was dead. 



Poems on Ohio. 135 

So he kept traveling, far and wide, 

Till his old limbs failed him and he died. 

He said, at last: "Tis a comfort to feel 

I've done some good in the world, though not a great deal.' " 

Weary travelers, journeying west, 
In the shade of his trees find pleasant rest. 
And often they start with glad surprise 
At the rosy fruit that around them lies. 

And if they inquire whence came such trees, 
Where not a bough once swayed in the breeze. 
The reply still comes, as they travel on, 
''These trees were planted by Appleseed John." 



ELIZABETH ZANE/«i 

By John S. Adams. 

[St. Nicholas.] 



This dauntless pioneer maiden's name 

Is inscribed in gold on the scroll of fame. 

She was the lassie who knew no fear 

When the tomahawk gleamed on the far frontier. 

If deeds of daring should win renown, 

Let us honor this damsel of Wheeling town. 

Who braved the savages with deep disdain, — 

Bright-eyed buxom Elizabeth Zane. 

'Tis more than a hundred years ago, 
They were close beset by the dusky foe; 
They had spent of powder their scanty store. 
And who should the gauntlet run for more ? 



"^The act narrated in the poem occurred at the siege of Fort 
Henry in 1782. EHzabeth Zane was a sister of Ebenezer Zane, the com- 
mander of the fort and the man for whom Zanesville was named. 



136 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

She sprang to the portal and shouted, "I 
'Tis better a girl than a man should die ! 
My loss would be but the garrison's gain. 
Unbar the gate!" said Elizabeth Zane. 

The powder was sixty yards away 

Around her the f oemen in ambush lay ; 

As she darted from shelter they gazed with awe 

Then wildly shouted, ''A squaw ! A squaw !" 

She neither swerved from left or right. 

Swift as an antelope's was her flight. 

''Quick! open the door!" she cried amain, 

For a hope forlorn ! 'Tis Elizabeth Zane ! 

No time had she to waver or wait 
Back must she go ere it be too late ; 
She snatched from the table its cloth in haste 
And knotted it deftly around her waist. 
Then filled it with powder — never, I ween. 
Had powder so lovely a magazine ; 
Then scorning the bullets' deadly rain, 
Like a startled fawn, fled Elizabeth Zane. 

She gained the fort with her precious freight ; 
Strong hands fastened the oaken gate; 
Brave men's eyes were suffused with tears 
That had been strangers for many years. 
From flintlock rifles again there sped 
'Gainst the skulking red-skins a storm of lead. 
And the war-whoop sounded that day in vain. 
Thanks to the deed of Elizabeth Zane. 

Talk not to me of Paul Revere 

A man on horseback with naught to fear ; 

Nor of old John Burns with his bell-crowned hat- 

He'd an army to back him, so what of that? 

Here's to the heroine, plump and brown, 

Who ran the gauntlet in Wheeling town ; 

Here is a record without a stain, — 

Beautiful, buxom Elizabeth Zane. 



Poems on Ohio. 137 

TECUMSEH. 

By Jessie V. Donnell. 

[Magazine of Western History.] 

True son of the forest, whose towering form 
Imaged the pine in the wind-driven storm; 
Whose eye Hke the eagle's pierced keen and far, 
Or burned with the Hght of a fiery star ; 
Whose voice was the river's tempestuous roar. 
The surging of waves on a pitiless shore. 

His tongue was a flame that leaped through the West 

Enkindling a spark in each rude savage breast ; 

The wind of the prairies, resistless and free, 

Was the breath of his passionate imagery; 

Ah ! Never were poet's dreams more grand. 

Nor even a Caesar more nobly planned ! 

His brain was as broad as the prairies' sweep; 
His heart like a mountain cavern deep, 
Where silent and shadowed the water lies, 
Yet mirrors a gleam from the star-strewn skies ; 
His soul ablaze with a purpose high. 
Disdain of possession, scorn of a lie. 

What was Tecumseh? A threatening cloud 

Over the untrodden wilderness bowed, 

Bringing the storm in its desolate train, 

Heralding rush of the hurricane ! 

Such to his foes : to his friends a spark, 

That a moment gleamed through the gathering dark. 

A comet-flash through a midnight sky; 

The wail of the wind as it hurried by ; 

The flight of a bird on its untamed wings, — 

All wild, resistless, impetuous things, 

Symbol, though faintly, that barbaric guide 

Who led forth to freedom, and failed and died. 



138 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Was Tecumseh then but a failure? A light 

That faded for aye in eternity's night? 

Will the sons of the forest forget their pride 

Forget that a hero still he died? 

Defeat is not a failure when spirits are brave ; 

God wastes not the spark his divinity gave. 

Great souls are not made for failure; they fall 
But God in his patience regathers them all ; 
Like stars they are set in the dimness of time 
To illumine the world with their light sublime; 
And while glimmers a ray from the mightiest star, 
The soul of Tecumseh shall shine from afar. 



JOHN GRAY, WASHINGTON'S LAST SOLDIER.^*^^ 

(born near MT. VERNON, VA., JAN. 6, I764; DIED NEAR HIRAMS- 
BURG, O., MARCH 29, 1868.) 

By Private Dalzell. (1838 — Y^^ 
(Read at the Marietta Centennial Celebration). 

One by one the severed links have started 

Bonds that bound us to the sacred past ; 
One by one, our patriot sires departed. 

Time hath brought us to behold the last; 
Last of all who won our earthly glory. 

Lonely traveler of the weary way. 
Poor, unknown, unnamed in song or story, 

In his western cabin lives John Gray. 



"^Passengers on the "Narrow-guage" running between Zanesville 
and Bellaire can see the "Meadow" cemetery on the left hand just as 
you approach Hiramsburg from the west. 

"^James M. Dalzell of Noble County, was a prolific writer and his 
pen championed the cause of the soldiers of the Civil War. He was 
the originator of the Soldiers' Reunions. He was born in Allegheny 
City, Pa., and was nine years old when he came to Ohio. At the out- 



Poems on Ohio. 139 

Deign to stoop to rural shades, sweet Clio ! 

Sing the hero of the sword and plow ; 
On the borders of his ow^n Ohio, 

Weave a laurel for the veteran's brow ; 
While attuned unto the murmuring waters 

Flows the burden of our pastoral lay, 
Bid the fairest of Columbia's daughters. 

O'er his locks of silver crown John Gray. 

Slaves of self and serfs of vain ambition — 

Toilful strivers of the city's mart, 
Turn awhile, and bless the sweet transition 

Unto scenes that soothe the care-worn heart; 
Turn w^th me to yonder moss-thatched dwelling, 

Wreathed in woodbine and wild-rose spray, 
While the muse his simple tale is telling 

Tottering on his crutches, see John Gray. 

When Defeat had pressed his bitter chalice 

To the lips of England's haughty lord, — 
Bowed in shame the brow of stern Cornwallis, 

And at Yorktown claimed his bloody sword; 
At the crowning of the siege laborious — 

At the triumph of this glorious day, 
Near his chieftain in the ranks victorious, 

Stood the youthful soldier, brave John Gray. 

While he vowed through peace their love should burn on — 

While he bade his tearful troops farewell 
One alone unto thy shades, Mount Vernon, 

Called the chieftain with himself to dwell, 



break of the Civil War he was a student at college. For two years he 
served as a private in the One Hundred and Sixteenth O. V. I. At 
the close of the war he studied law, filled a clerkship at Washington 
and then settled down at Caldwell, Ohio. He represented his county- 
two terms in the Legislature and has taken active part in several 
political campaigns. His writings, covering a broad field, have appeared 
in newspapers and magazines over the land. 



140 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Proud to serve the Father of the Nation, 

Glad to hear the voice that bade him stay 

Year by year upon the broad plantation, 

Unto ripened manhood toiled John Gray. 

Sowed and reaped and gathered to the garner 

All the summer plenty's golden sheaves. — 
Sowed and reaped till Time the ruthless warner, 

Whispered through the dreary autumn leaves : 
''Wherefore tarry? Freedom's skies are o'er thee; 

Winter f rowneth ere the blush of May : 
Lo, is not a goodly land before thee? 

Up and choose thee now a home, John Gray." 

Thus he heard the words of duty's warning, 

And he saw the rising Empire-star 
Dawning dimly on the Nation's morning — 

Guiding westward Emigration's car. 
Heard and saw and quickly rose to follow, 

He bore his rifle for the savage prey. 
Bore his ax that soon in greenwood hollow 

Timed thy sylvan ballads, bold John Gray. 

Blessed with love his lonely labors cheering, 

Blithe the hearthstone of that forest nook, 
Where arose his cabin in the ''Clearing," 

Near the meadow with its purling brook; 
Where his children from their noon-day laughter 

Turned at eve and left their joyous play, 
Hushed and still when the great hereafter 

Spake the Christian father, meek John Gray. 

Oh, the years of mingled joy and sadness ! 

Oh, the hours — the countless hours of toil. 
Shared alike through sorrow and through gladness 

By loved hands now mouldering in the soil; 
Oh, the anguish stifled in the shadow 

Of the gloom that bore her form away ! 
'Neath yon mound she slumbers in the meadow. 

Waiting, meekly waiting thee, John Gray. 



Poems on Ohio. 141 

All day long upon the threshold sitting, 

Where the sunbeams through the bright leaves shine — 
Where the zephyrs through his white locks flitting, 

Softly whispers of the "aud lang syne." 
How he loves on holy thoughts to ponder; 

How his eyes the azure heaven survey. 

Or toward yon meadow dimly wander; — 

Yes, beside her thou shalt sleep. John Gray. 

In the tomb thy comrades' bodies slumber, — 

Unto heaven their souls have flown before; 
Only one is ''missing" of their number, — 

Only one to win the radiant shore; — 
Only one to join the sacred chorus, — 

Only one to burst the bond's of clay ; 
Soon the sentry's trumpet sounding o'er us. 

To their ranks shall summon thee, John Gray. 

Peace be with thee, — gentle spirit guard thee 

Noble type of heroes now no more ! 
In thine age may gratitude reward thee, 

In thy need may bounty bless thy store ; 
Care of woman — gentle true and tender, 

Strength of manhood be thy guide and stay; 
Let not those who roll in idle splendor, 

To their shame forget thee, lone John Gray. 

Five score winters on thy head have whitened — 

Five score summers o'er thy brow have passed; 
All the sunshine that the pathway brightened. 

Clouds of want and care o'ercast. 
Thus the last of those who won our glory. 

Lonely traveler of the weary way, 
Poor, unknown, unnamed in song and story. 

In his western cabin, died John Gray. 



142 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

OHIO'S WELCOME TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.^«* 

By Gideon Tabor Stewart. 

Old Massachusetts Eagle yet, 

Hail from his aeried rock ! 

That mounting form hath often met 

In years agone the shock, 

When fell Detraction stormed and Hate 

Tugged fiercely at his fame; 

Think ye he recked their venom's prate. 

Or quaked for his good name? 

Go, mark him well. How braved he then, 

Seek from himself reply. 

Aye, read it in his conquering mien. 

And still all glorious eye. 

Look now on him, unscathed, unshent. 

As when his pinion first assayed 

Its strength ab'ove his native glade; 

Or when in primal vigor bent. 

It beaconed through mid-firmament. 

Bird of gray plume say whither now, 

Goes forth thy soaring eye? 

Turns it as erst to Kingly halls, 

For mission firm and high? 

No, for I mark thine aged ken 

Seeks not as wont, the sun; 

But o'er the broad and prairied West 

Its compass deepens on 

To where the blue Ohio's sheen 



*"*In 1843 John Quincy Adams visited Ohio and public receptions 
were accorded him at Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Lebanon, Newark 
and other cities. He arrived at Columbus on November 7th of that 
year and was a guest at the Neil House. The Ohio State Journal of 
that day contained the foregoing poem composed for the occasion by 
Gideon Tabor Stewart, who was a law student in the office of Hon. 
Noah H. Swayne, who was afterwards a Justice of the United States 
Supreme Court. 



Poems on Ohio. 143 

Breaks through its folding wing. 

Broods that Hesperian City Queen, 

A stately, gorgeous thing. 

Why goes that glorious pilgrim forth 

At this time-weary hour? 

What new orbed sun is mounting now 

To spell him with its power ? 

Ask where Ohio's star is seen 

Whence dun Occasus lies, 

Blazing from high with solar sheen, 

A crest in the skies. 

Not with a feebly waxing ray 

Dim struggling from the cope of day. 

For, like Minerva sprung from Jove, 

Sun-born and armed her car she drove. 

Yes, he hath sought our glorious state 

To gaze before his eyes wax dim 

On fairest germs of highest fate, 

That from this peopled empire great, 

Their seer-like presage lend to him. 

And he is here, what greeting his ? 

Floating of banners? Trumpets' breath? 

Trail of bright arms? Nay what were this. 

But a mock pantomime of bliss? 

The joy of free hearts claims a voice. 

And hand seeks hand when hearts rejoice. 

Such welcome speaks Ohio's choice. 

Hear what the Western Empress saith : 

Relic of olden worth, thy step 

Falls pleasant to my ears. 

With soul of pride I gaze on thee, 

Scion of Pilgrim years. 

That form unbowed by Time's rude hand. 

Still stately as of yore; 

That step whose vigor ceases not, 

Firm as in days before ; 

That eye whose living luster quelled 

Oft-times the hardiest foes, 



144 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Looks forth as though its calm clear light, 

No shadow ever knows, 

Still, still the same in youth or age, 

All hail from thy far pilgrimage ! 

And is this he whose clarion voice 

Rang out long years ago, 

With thoughts that burned and words that scathed 

His own and country's foes? 

In years when my now peopled realm 

No human sound awoke, 

Save when from some grim ambushed rock 

The deadly war-whoop broke ; 

Or savage shout or stealthy tread, 

Stirred in the sullen wold? 

Yes, he is one of those whose might 

Gave to our age its mould. 

Whose high and eloquent command. 

Reared empires in this forest land. 

And is this he who thrice went forth 

Charged with a nation's weal, 

To dictate peace in kingly halls 

And hush war's horrid peal? 

Yes, this is he, New England's sage, 

With intellect whose scope 

Strikes at the farthest goal of mind 

Where human thought can cope, 
; And still though age has looked on him, 

\ Hi« mind has never yet waxed dim. 

At i is this he whose hand hath strung 

With master skill the lyre. 

And poured its living chords along 

The bard's impassioned fire? 

Who sang of vanquished Erin's Kings, 

A lay of olden time. 

When Ocean's Emerald Isle was won 

By Aldion's art and crime. 

And Treachery's arm laid waste her land 

With Rapine's torch and Murder's brand? 



Poems on Ohio. 145 

But numbers sweeter thence aspire 

When gentler themes commove. 

Or in bereaves Affection's hour 

ConsoHng Mother love; 

Or waking strains for Beauty's bower, 

Of merry note and kindly power. 

Still through the mists of Time his eye 

Reveals its minstrel fire; 

And still the founts that inly lie 

The Old Man's heart inspire. 

And is this he whose name once filled 

The land with its acclaim, 

When by a shouting people borne 

To its high place of fame? 

When he stood forth our Nation's head, 

The guardian pilot of its helm, 

By millions loved, by all obeyed. 

The honored chieftain of our realm ? 

Yes, Statesman, Poet, Chieftain, Sage, 

Stand bodied forth in thee. 

High Game, from her empyreal urn, 

Has poured her sunshine free 

Upon that head, time blanched and bare; 

Lo, still its luster lingers there ! 

And is this he whom late we saw 

Poised in our Congress Hall, 

Where quaking hearts and craven tongues 

Plotted the Old Man's fall, 

And thret'ning voices clamored him; 

All lion-like at b'ay. 

Spurning the chains base hands had forged 

On soul and lip to fray. 

While despots freely struggled there 

To ban and bar the free heart's prayer? 

And lo ! a censure scroll appears. 

Accursed each minion lip 

Which stirred not with the breath of scorn, 

10 



146 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

When that foul damning scrip 

Breathed out on air its ghost of Hate. 

Aye, doubly cursed each one, 

Whose recreant tongue would visit not, 

Those whom his ancient fame would blot, 

With the heart's malison. 

Yes, Adams, when all hostile tongues 

Which then maligned that fame, 

Shall blacken in Oblivion's maw, 

Thy ever-living name 

Will rise o'er their forgotten dust, 

A Nation's pride ! a People's trust. 

Behold the Man ! Yes, he has come 

To consecrate that art 

Which here would raise a dwelling place, 

Whence Science may impart 

Her starry lore plucked from the skies, 

To guide man through their mysteries, 

Magician, lay that hand of thine 

Upon yon quarried base, 

And straight a pillared dome shall rise, 

A tower of beauty in my skies. 

From whose far-beaming face. 

The firmamental night shall flee; 

And mighty space shall gorgeous lie, 

In its unbosomed majesty. 

Aye bid it rise, for it shall stand 

A monument of thee; 

And may its light abroad this land. 

Be shed as true and well, ^ 

As ever, on thy country's shrine 

Thy mind's rich luster fell." 



Poems on Ohio. 147 

JOHN FILSON. 

By William H. Venable. 

(Matthias Denman, Robert Patterson and John Filson laid out 
the town of Losantiville, now the city of Cincinnati, in 1788. Filson, 
schoolmaster and surveyor, went out to explore the woods between the 
Miamis, but never returned). 

John Filson was a pedagogue — 

A pioneer was he; 
I know not what his nation was 

Nor what his pedigree. 

Tradition's scanty records tell 

But little of the man, 
Save that he to the frontier came 

In immigration's van. 

Perhaps with phantoms of reform 

His busy fancy teemed, 
Perhaps of new Utopias 

Hesperian he dreamed. 

John Filson and companions bold 

A frontier village planned, 
In forest wild, on sloping hills, 

By fair Ohio's strand. 

John Filson from three languages 

With pendant skill did frame 
The novel word Losantiville^^^ 

To be the new town's name. 

Said Filson : "Comrades, hear my words : 
''Ere three score years have flown 

Our town will be a city vast." 

Loud laughed Bob Patterson. 



^^'Losantiville is a combination of words — Greek, Latin and French 
meaning "The town opposite the mouth" (of the Licking). 



148 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications, 

Still John exclaimed with prophet-tongue, 
''A city fair and proud, 
The Queen of Cities in the West!" 
Mat Denman laughed aloud. 

Deep in the wild and solemn woods 
Unknown to white man's track, 

John Filson went, one autumn day, 
But nevermore came back. 

He struggled through the solitude 

The inland to explore, 
And with romantic pleasure traced 

Miami's winding shore. 

Across his path the startled deer 
Bounds to its shelter green; 

He enters every lonely vale 
And cavernous ravine. 

Too soon the murky twilight comes 
The boding night winds moan ; 

Bewildered wanders Filson, lost, 
Exhausted, and alone. 

By lurking foes his steps are dogged, 

A yell his ear appalls ! 
A ghastly corpse, upon the ground, 

A murdered man, he falls. 

The Indian with instinctive hate. 

In him a herald saw 
Of coming hosts of pioneers, 

The friends of light and law ; 

In him beheld the champion 

Of industries and arts. 
The founder of encroaching roads 

And great commercial marts; 



Poems on Ohio. 149 

The spoiler of the hunting ground, 

The plower of the sod, 
The builder of the Christian school 

And of the house of God. 

And so the vengeful tomahawk 

John Filson's blood did spill, — 
The spirit of the pedagogue 

No tomahawk could kill. 

John Filson had no sepulcher, 

Except the wildwood dim ; 
The mournful voices of the air 

Made requiem for him. 

The druid trees their waving arms 

Uplifted o'er his head; 
The moon a pallid veil of light 

Upon his visage spread. 

The rain and sun of many years 

Have worn his bones away, 
And what he vaguely prophesied 

We realize to-day. 

Losantiville, the prophet's word. 

The poet's hope fulfils, — 
She sits a stately Queen to-day 

Amid her royal hills ! 

Then come, ye pedagogues, and join 

To sing a grateful lay 
For him, the martyr pioneer, 

Who led for you the way. 

And may my simple ballad be 

A monument to save 
His name from blank oblivion. 

Who never had a grave. 



150 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

JOHNNY APPLESEED.^'^« 

a ballad of the old northwest. 

By William H. Venable. 

A midnight cry appalls the gloom, 
The puncheon door is shaken : 
''Awake ! Arouse ! And flee the doom ! 
Man, woman, child, awaken ! 

, "Your sky shall glow with fiery beams 

Before the morn breaks ruddy! 
The scalpknife in the moonlight gleams, 
Athirst for vengeance bloody!" 

Alarmed by the dreadful word 

Some warning tongue thus utters, 

The settler's wife, like mother bird. 
About her young ones flutters. 

Her first born, rustling from a soft 
Leaf-couch, the roof close under, 

Glides down the ladder from the loft. 
With eyes of dreamy wonder. 

The pioneer flings open wide 

The cabin-door, naught fearing; 

The grim woods drowse on every side, 
Around their lonely clearing. 



"'John Chapman, or "Appleseed Johnn}^," was an eccentric charac- 
ter who came to Ohio from Massachusetts about the beginning of the 
1800's. He lived a great many years in Richland County. His pen- 
chant was to plant appleseeds and his nurseries extended all over North- 
ern Ohio and finally into Indiana. He was a Swedenborgian in religion 
and as he went on his rounds proclaimed his faith. Newell Dwight 
Hillis has written a book entitled, "The Quest of John Chapman." 



Poems on Ohio. 151 

'Come in ! Come in ! Nor like an owl ^ 

Thus hoot your doleful humors ; 
What fiend possesses you to howl 

Such crazy, coward rumors?" 

The herald strode into the room; 

That moment through the ashes, 
The back-log struggled into bloom 

Of gold and crimson flashes. 

The glimmer lighted up a face, 

And o'er a figure dartled. 
So eerie, of so solemn grace, 

The blufif backwoodsman startled. 

The brow was gathered to a frown. 

The eyes were strangely glowing. 
And, like a snow-fall drifting down, 

The stormy beard went flowing. 

The tattered cloak that round him clung 

Had warred with foulest weather; 
Across his shoulders broad were flung 

Brown saddlebags of leather. 

One pouch with hoarded seed was packed, 

From Penn land cider-presses; 
The other garnered book and tract 

Within its creased recesses. 

A glance disdainful and austere. 

Contemptuous of danger, 
Cast he upon the pioneer, 

Then spake the uncouth stranger: 

*Heed what the Lord's anointed saith; 

Hear one who would deliver 
Your bodies and your souls from death; 

List ye to John the Giver. 



152 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

"Thou trustful b'oy, in spirit wise, 
Beyond thy father's measure, 
Because of thy believing eyes 

I share with thee my treasure. 

"Of precious seed this handful take; 
Take next this Bible Holy; 
In good soil sow both gifts, for sake 
Of Him, the meek and lowly. 

"Farewell ! I go ! — the forest calls 
My life to ceaseless labors; 
Where /er danger's shadow falls 
I fly to save my neighbors. 

"I save; I neither curse nor slay; 
I am a voice that crieth 
In night and wilderness. Away! 
Whoever doubteth, dieth !" 

The prophet vanished in the night. 
Like some fleet ghost belated; 

Then, awe-struck, fled with panic fright 
The household, evil-fated. 

They hurried on with stumbling feet. 

Foreboding ambuscado; 
Bewildered hope told of retreat 

In frontier palisado. 

But ere a mile of tangled maze 

Their bleeding hands had broken, 

Their home-roof set the dark ablaze, 
Fulfilling doom forespoken. 

The savage war-whoop rent the air ! 

A howl of rage infernal ! 
The fugitives were in Thy care, 

Almighty Power eternal ! 



Poems on Ohio. 153 

Unscathed by tomahawk or knife, 

In bosky dingle nested, 
The hunted pioneer, with wife 

And babes hid unmolested. 

The lad, when age his locks of gold 

Had changed to silver glory. 
Told grandchildren, as I have told 

This western wildwood story. 

Told how the fertile seeds had grown 

To famous trees, and thriven ; 
And oft the Sacred Book was shown, 

By that weird Pilgrim given. 

Remember Johnny Appleseed, 

All ye who love the apple; 
He served his kind by Word and Deed 

In God's grand greenwood chapel. 



THE POET OF CLOVERNOOK. 

(Read at the celebration of Alice Gary's birthday, to the children 
of the Public Schools of Cincinnati, April 26, 1880). 

By William H. Venable. 

A poet born, not made. 

By Nature taught, she knew. 
And, knowing, still obeyed 

The Beautiful, the True. 

Hers was the seeing eye. 

The sympathetic heart. 
The subtle art whereby 

Lone genius summons art. 



154 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

She caught the primal charm 
Of every rural scene, — 

Of river, cottage, farm, 

Blue sky, and woodland green. 

Baptized in Sorrow's stream. 

She sang, how sweetly well, 

Of true Love's tender dream. 
And Death's pale asphodel. 

Her pensive muse has fled 

From hill and meadow-brook; 

No more her footsteps tread 

Thy paths fair Clovernook.^^^ 

iSFo more may she behold 

The dew-crowned Summer morn 

Or wings of sunrise gold 

Fly o'er the bending corn. 

No more her mournful gaze 
Shall seek the twilight sky, 

When parting Autumn days 
Flush hectic ere they die. 

Nor note of joyous bird. 

Nor April's fragrant breath. 

Nor tear, nor loving word. 

May break the spell of Death. 

Sleep on ! and take thy rest. 
In Greenwood by the sea ! 

Dear Poet of the West 

Thy West remembers thee. 



"^Clovernook was the home of the Gary sisters. It is situated 
-on the Cincinnati and Hamilton pike, eight miles from Fountain 
Square, Cincinnati. This poem is taken from Dr. Venable's ''Sage 
•of the Oak." 



Poems on Ohio. 155 

THE GARY SISTERS. 

By John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892). 

Years since (but names to me before) 
Two sisters sought at eve my door, 
Two song birds wandering from their nest, 
A gray old farm house in the West. 

Timid and young, the elder had 
Even then a smile too sweetly sad; 
The crown of pain we all must wear 
Too early pressed her mid-night hair. 

Yet, ere the summer eve grew long, 
Her modest lips were sweet with song; 
A memory haunted all her words 
Of clover fields and singing birds. 



JOHNNY APPLESEED. 

(The following extract from a poem, by Mrs. E. S. Dill, of Wy- 
oming, Hamilton County, Ohio, written for the Christian Standard, is- 
a pleasing tribute to the memory of Johnny Appleseed). 

Grandpa stooped and from the grass at our feet. 

Picked up an apple, large, juicy and sweet; 

Then took out his jack knife and, cutting a slice, 

Said as we ate it, "Isn't it nice 

To have such applies to eat and enjoy? 

Well, there weren't very many when I was a boy, 

For the country was new — e'en food was scant; 

We had hardly enough to keep us from want, 

And this good man, as he rode around 

Oft eating and sleeping upon the ground. 

Always carried and planted appleseeds — 

Not for himself but for others' needs. 



156 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

The appleseeds grew and we to-day 

Eat of the fruit planted by the way. 

While Johnny — - bless him — is under the sod 

His body is — ah ! he is with God ; 

For, child, though it seemed a trifling deed 

For a man just to plant an appleseed, 

The apple-tree's shade, the flowers, the fruit, 

Have proved a blessing to man and brute. 

Look at the orchards throughout the land, 

All of them planted by old Johnny's hand. 

He will forever remembered be; 

I would wish to have all so think of me." 



SUCCESS TO YOU, TOM CORWIN.^^^ 

By John W. Van Cleve (i8oi-i858).i«» 

Success to you, Tom Corwin ! 

Tom Corwin our true hearts love you ! 
Ohio has no nobler son, 

In worth there's none above you ! 
And she will soon bestow 

On you, her highest honor, 
And then our state will kindly show 

Without a stain upon her. 



108' 



*Tom Corwin was the Whig candidate for governor in 1840. This 
•song appeared in a campaign paper, "The Log Cabin." 

"^John W. Van Cleve was said to be the first male child born in 
Dayton, Ohio, his father being one of the very first settlers at that 
place. As a child he was quite precocious, and at the early age of six- 
musician, painter, engraver, civil engineer, botanist and geologist. He 
was versatile in his accomplishments, being proficient as a linguist, 
musician, painter, engraver, civil engineer botanist and geologist. He 
studied law, became mayor of Dayton and took the initial step in many 
of the public interests of the city, in the way of civic improvement. In 
the campaign of 1840 he furnished much of the campaign material for 
The Log Cabin, 



Poems on Ohio. 157 



Success to you, Tom Corwin: 

WeVe seen with warm emotion, 
Your faithfulness to freedom's cause, 

Your boldness, your devotion. 
And we'll ne'er forget 

That you our rights have guarded; 
Our grateful hearts shall pay the debt, 

And worth shall be regarded. 



TIPPECANOE AND TYLER, TOO/^« 

By a. C. Ross, Zanesville, O. (1812-1883)^^^ 

Oh, what has caused this great commotion, motion, motion, 

All the country through ? 
It is the ball a-rolling on 

For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too. 

And with 'em we'll beat Little Van ! 

Van, Van is a used up man ; 

And with 'em we'll beat Little Van! 



^^° Whig campaign song of 1840. 

"^A. C. Ross was born in Zanesville, Ohio. At the age of 17 he 
was apprenticed to a watch-maker, and later went to New York City 
to complete his preparation. Upon reading of Daguerre's method of 
taking pictures, he from the description, rigged up an apparatus which 
successfully did the work. He did the same thing when he heard of 
Morse's telegraph and when the first line reached Zanesville, he was 
chosen the operator. He experimented with illuminating gas and be- 
came the organizer of a company to furnish it to his native city. He 
was a lover of music and became quite a proficient operator on several 
instruments, besides being somewhat of a vocalist. In the campaign of 
1840, he was an earnest supporter of General Harrison. There was a 
"Tippecanoe and Tyler" club in Zanesville. Ross was a prominent mem- 
ber of it and he wrote the song and led off with it in the old senate 
chamber in that city. It at once became immensely popular and added 
much to the enthusiasm of that very enthusiastic campaign. 



158 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Like the working of mighty waters, waters, waters, 

On it will go, 
And in its course we'll clear the way 

For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, etc. 

See the Loco's standard tottering, tottering, tottering, 

Down it must go, 
And in its place we'll rear the flag 

Of Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, etc. 

The Bay State boys turned out in thousands, thousands, thou- 
sands, 

Not long ago, 
And at Bunker Hill they set their seals 

For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, etc. 

Now you hear the Van jocks talking, talking, talking, 

Things look quite blue, 
For all the world seemed turning around 

For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, etc. 

Let them talk about hard cider, cider, cider. 

And log-cabins, too, 
It will only help to speed the ball 

For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, etc. 

His latch-spring hangs outside the door, door, door. 

And is never pulled in, 
For it is always the custom of 

Old Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, etc. 

He always had his table set, set, set, 

For all honest and true. 
To ask you in to take a bite 

With Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, etc. 



Poems on Ohio. 159 

See the spoilsmen and leg-treasurers, treasurers, treasurers, 

All in a stew, 
For well they know they stand no chance 

With Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, etc. 

Little Matty's days are numbered, numbered, numbered, 

And out he must go, 
For in his place we'll put the good 

Old Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, etc. 



GOVERNOR TOD/12 

air: rosin the bow. 
By John Greiner.^^^ (1810-1871.) 

Soon after the great nomination 
Was held at Columbus, so odd, 

There was quite a jollification 

At the homestead of Governor Tod. 

His mother, good pious old lady. 

Her spectacles threw on the sod — 
"Good Gracious ! who'd thought that our Davy 
Would ever be Governor Tod." 



"- Campaign song of 1844, when David Tod was nominated for 
Governor by the Democrats. 

"" John Greiner was born in Philadelphia in 1810 ; located when a 
young man at Marietta, where he worked at his trade as a painter, mar- 
ried his first wife, Laura Bennett, and acquired a reputation as a com- 
poser and singer of songs of temperance, of which he remained an ardent 
advocate daring his life. In the famous political struggle of 1840 he 
was in Ohio the principal song-writer and singer, though the identity of 
the verses of which he was author is not altogether clear. Most of his 
compositions were impromptu, written on his hat while riding to a meet- 
ing, or while the orators were speaking. The words, even when pre- 
served in print, afford no idea of the power of the songs as rendered 
by him, with a great crowd joining in a simple chorus with familiar air. 
He also sang effectively in the campaigns of 1842, 1844 and 1848. He 



160 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

His sisters each other remarking, 

Said proudly, ''Those fellows may plod, 

Who used to come up here a-sparking 
The sisters of Governor Tod." 

The little Tods building play houses, 
As they in their petticoats trod, 

Said, "O, mother, now shan't we wear trousers, 
Since papa is Governor Tod?" 

"Indeed we will cut no more capers 
Because it would look very odd 
If we were to play with the neighbors. 
And we all Governers Tod." 

"Be quiet each little young sappy, 

I'll tickle your backs with the rod ; 
It's only myself and your papa 

Are Governors — , saucy young Tods. 

So, now, if the people are hardened, 
And shouldn't elect him how odd ; 

They surely will never get pardoned 
By Davy, the Governor Tod. 



was elected State Librarian in 1844; was appointed Indian Agent for 
the territory of New Mexico in 1849 and later Secretary of that ter- 
ritory; in 1861, Lincoln appointed him governor of the territory a po- 
sition which he held till 1865. His newspaper work was as a writer for 
the Ohio State Journal, editor of the Columbus Gazette, editor and 
owner of the City Times and later The Workman, both of Zanesville. 
His last years were spent in Columbus. He died May 13, 1871, at Toledo 
where he was stricken with paralysis while addressing the Grand Lodge 
of Odd Fellows. 



Poems on Ohio. 161 

ODE ON STANTON. 

[Written by Prof. Gearge C. S. Southworth"* and read at the cele- 
bration at Kenyon College, 26th April, 1906, in memory of her dis- 
tinguished son, Edwin McMasters Stanton.] 

I. 

Statesman and Jurist, entered into rest 

What time our grand Republic loosed her helm 

After the toils of war ! Among the blest 

None shines more radiant in the heavenly realm 

Than he, whose name our laureate honors overwhelm. 

Stanton, the patient, fiery, masterful and bold. 

Persistent, wielding freedom's sword of flame, 

Man cast in the Arthurian knightly mold 

Whose blazon vibrates from the trump of fame 

Down the resounding avenues of time the same 

As some fair star ascends the arch of night, 

While round the pole the constellations wheel. 

His good report mounts brighter and more bright, 

Resplendent in the galaxy of commonweal; 

Beside his tomb a reverent people kneel. 

II. 

His perfect courage in that hour awoke 

When craven counsels paralyzed the arm 

Of the supreme executive. He spoke 

In stern dissent, broke the deceitful calm, 

Unmasked disunion, startled our millions with a shrill alarm. 

When nerveless leaders flung our surging lines 

Upon the southern rock, to break in crimson foam, 

His eye discerned Ulysses of the wise designs. 



"* Prof. Geo. C. S. Southworth is a Massachusetts man who re- 
ceived his Bachelor's Degree from Yale in 1863 and his Master's Degree 
In 1866. He also received the degree of L. L. B. from the Harvard Law 
School in 1865. He was Professor of English Literature and History in 
Kenyon College, 1881-85, and of English Language and Literature, 1885- 
88. He is the author of "An Introduction to the Study of English Lit- 
erature." 

11 



162 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Our later much enduring hero, whom no dome 
Of Ithaca awaited, but a fane among a grateful nation's shrines. 
Impetuous of speech when vivid truth unchained the living light- 
ning of his tongue 
To smite the mouths of counsellors of double things, 
To speed a righteous cause on morning's glittering wings. 
To bar interminable parley; when the sirens sung 
Of peace with shame, a union bound with chains 
A soft surrender after sore and desperate campaigns. 

III. 

Servant of God, as one whose saintly blood flowed from a line- 
age of blameless Friends, 

He urged Emancipation ere the godlike Lincoln breathed the 
fatal word, 

Which disenthralled a race and cloudless splendor lends 

To liberty, — by the spirit of the Lord conferred. 

Till listening angels the sweet edict heard. 

At last the ermine, white and unsullied as his spotless name, 

In that august tribunal where the general voice 

Concordant hailed him with reverberant acclaim; 

Whence envious gods caught him on high, the darling of their 
choice. 

Rejoice ye patriots; Seraphs too rejoice! 



TO JOHN RANKIN.ii^ 

Chambers Baird. 

SONNET. 



Grand pioneer in Freedom's holy cause. 

The praise and honor thine, who battled long, 
And didst assail the citadel of wrong 

With dauntless faith, and courage without pause, 



"^ Rev. John Rankin was the Presbyterian minister at Ripley, Brown 
County. He was a sterling abolitionist and his home was one of the 
stations on the Underground Railroad. At Ripley some of the scenes 
of Uncle Tom's Cabin are said to have occurred. 



Poems on Ohio. 163 

Despite the throttling power of evil laws 

That made the bondsman's shackles doubly strong. 
And would make freemen slaves in common throng, 

Whilst cowards gave assent and meek applause. 

Dear Hero of our age, thy work is o'er, 

Thou canst and needst no more thy warfare wage. 
In peace and joy thou sawst thy latest sun; 
Thou hast the victor's crown forevermore. 
And leav'st to us for blessed heritage 

The faith well-kept, the good fight fought — and won ! 



THE SORROW OF THE NATIONS. 

In Memoriam, Wm, McKinley. 

By John P. Smith/^^ Sharpsburg, Maryland. 

There's darkness over every land — 
Man takes his fellow by the hand. 
The hearts of men now almost fail ; 
For all the earth is one sad wail. 

There's sorrow in the hut and hall. 
Our land's enshrouded with a pall; 
The bells of death do sadly toll 
The grief that overwhelms the soul. 



""John Philemon Smith, son of John Hamilton Smith and Sarah 
Bardoon Kretzer, was born September 2, 1845. His grandfather was 
John Philemon Smith the great, great nephew of Major Charles Alex- 
ander Warfield, M. D., the Hero of the Peggy Stewart. Mr. Smith has 
been a teacher. He is a corresponding member of the Maryland His- 
torical Society and the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. 
Mr. Smith is the author of many poems among which might be men- 
tioned "Our Maryland State is Beautiful" and 'The Battle of Antietam." 



164 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Loved Britain's king of grace and worth, 
The millions high and low in birth, 
The proudest thrones of royal power, 
Are one with us in sorrow's hour. 

'Tis not that bloody handed war — 
Nor pestilence has swept our shore ; 
Our nation's head has fallen low 
Oh, God ! to Thee in grief we bow. 

O cruel vile accursed blow — 

That laid our loved McKinley low ; 

The world's great soul is bowed with grief, 

O Father ! is there no relief ? 

Despite the earnest prayers and tears. 
Despite the hopeful signs and fears ; 
The protest o'er our hero's fall, 
Death cometh to him after all. 

The kneeling millions wonder why 
A righteous God should let him die ; 
Unceasing prayers for him ascend, 
Our President, the nation's friend. 

Thy fondest hopes were born to fade. 
Thy beauty in the dust was laid ; 
Sleep, sainted spirit, sweetly sleep. 
While countless thousands for thee weep. 

O'er brightest scenes dark clouds descend. 
Each glorious day has its swift end; 
The flame soars high but for to fall, 
Night cometh to each one and all. 

The bloom of beauty we possess — 
Though love and life make tearfulness, 
The shadow of the funeral pall; 
Is death which cometh after all. 



Poems on Ohio. 165 

We love to think though lost to view, 
Of one so noble, grand and true, 
Our President to us so dear, 
Beloved by nations far and near. 

We know that thou hast entered rest, 
With all the blood-washed thou art blest; 
In realms of Amaranthine bowers, 
The gain is thine, the loss is ours. 

''God's will be done," thy sainted breath 
Proclaimed it in the hour of death, 
Bright seraph angels beckon me, 
''Nearer my Father, God, to Thee." 

Thus with thy last expiring breath, 
Thy spirit triumphed over death. 
The victory gained, the crown is won, 
Eternal life through God's dear Son. 

For her who shared his hopes and fears — 
His solace in declining years. 
Oh, God, be Thou her strength and stay 
Through this her melancholy day. 

Conduct her safe, conduct her far 
Through every ill and hurtful snare, 
And when the storms of sorrow lower 
Be near her with thy gracious power. 

Mysterious is our Father's way 
Though we journey day by day. 
Behind the clouds his face divine. 
Like noon-day suns effulgent shine. 

Be calm, my heart, and question not 
The seeming strangeness of the lot, 
Whate'er our Father, God, ordains, 
We know the Lord Jehovah reigns. 



166 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Father, protect our native land 
From anarchy's accursed hand; 
Defend the lives of rulers dear 
From day to day from year to year. 

Blot out foul anarchistic stain, 
Let not a trace of it remain, 
For traitors on this nation's sod. 
Are traitors to Almighty God. 



A SONG FOR OHIO. 

By Sullivan D. Harris. (1812-)^^^ 

When the God of our fathers looked over this land, 

To choose out a country most worthy possessing, 
Where the rivers and plains ever beauteous and grand, 

Might so constantly smile on the light of his blessing. 
From Erie's broad waves to the river below, 
The Scioto's sparkle and the Muskingum's flow, 
And the graceful Miamis together rejoice. 
And bless the All-Father with silver-toned voice. 

'Twas here the good angel encamped with his host 

To cheer the brave woodman, 'mid his toil and privation. 
Whose sturdy ax fell, never grudging the cost. 

To rear up such a state, as the gem of the nation; 
Then join all your voices in grateful acclaim, 
'Tis the triumph of toil in Jehovah's great name. 
Our sons and our daughters together may sing, 
The Might is the Right and the Farmer is King. 



"^ Sullivan D. Harris was born in Middlebury, Vermont. While yet 
a mere lad he began to contribute verses for the village newspapers. He 
came to Ohio in 1836, where he was by turns farmer, painter and teacher. 
His home was in Trumbull and Ashtabula counties. He became the 
proprietor of the Ohio Cultivator in 1855. The more practical concerns 
of life prevented his devotion to the Muse, whom his youthful fancy 
worshipped. 



Poems on Ohio. 167 

And here we are gathered from farm and from town, 
To behold and rejoice in each other's progression, 
So let the world wag in its up and its down, 

We are proud of a hand in this noble profession, 

Where the sweat of our face shall earn us our bread, 
And the angels of peace shall pillow our head. 
We are joined in a band no tyrant can sever — 
Hurrah for the Farmer, forever and ever ! 



OHIO'S FIRST PRINTED POEM. 

[This poem appeared in the first issue of the first newspaper"" of 
the Northwest, November 9, 1793.] 

Why should our wishes miss their aim ? 
Why does our love of wealth and fame, 

With jarring pursuits clash? 
My friends, 'tis strange, self love that rules 
The bulk of men, should make them fools. 

Their pockets drain of cash. 

The mystic cause I did explore, 
My neighbor's failings counted o'er, 

And blamed their want of thought. 
My occupation I despised, 
New schemes and calling straight devised, 

And found them all but naught. 

To Cincinnati shaped my course, 
With stick in hand, without a horse, 

'Twas galling to my mind ! 
Till on the banks of Ohio's flood 
I near a chinky cabin stood, 

For selling grog designed. 



"* This newspaper was The Centinel published by William Maxwell, 
who died and is buried in Greene County. 



168 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Behind his bar the cheerful host, 
Had sat him down his books to post, 

First took a morning dram; 
Thrice the blotted leaf he turned, 
The want of money still he mourned, 

The license fees did damn. 

The profits of a barrel told, 

If paid for, but so soon as sold, 

Would count him full ten pounds ; 
But swallowed by five hundred throats. 
One half not worth so many groats 

'Twould scarcely be ten crowns. 

Happy the grog man near the Fort 
When soldiers with their money sport, 

And give it for a song. 
But oh, the cruel, late campaign 
Has called away this jolly train, 

I hope they'll not stay long. 

Thus sagely spoke the man of grog. 
My rapturous soul was quite agog, 

While he tipped off a glass ; 
''Sure, then," I cried, ''could I but know 
When times again would turn out so. 

Light should my hours pass." 

Pray Henry K/^° pray tell me when 
Those jovial souls will come again. 

With three months' pay or two; 
Swift as the streams of Ohio glide 
I'd roll a keg to the Fort's"^ side 

And keep a tavern, too. 



'" Henry Knox, Secretary of War. 
'^ Ft. Washington. 



Poems on Ohio. 169 

THE TRIUMPH OF LIBERTY. 

1788-1888. 

[Written for the Marietta Centennial Celebration.] 

By Rodney K. Shaw.^-^ (1829-) 

We meet this splendid April morn 
Where equal Liberty was born. 
We meet to celebrate the birth 
Of her whose hand redeems the earth, 
This day in joy and pride we meet 
To worship at triumphal feet. 
Her age this day — a hundred years, 
As measured by the rolling spheres, 
As measured by her works sublime 
She grandly runs abreast of time. 

Here Freedom built her perfect arch 
Through which her faithful legions march; 
Here wisely formed her model state. 
Here reared her inner temple gate, 
And on its stainless pillars white 
Her deft and matchless fingers Vv'rite 



^^ Rodney K. Shaw was born in Denmark, Lewis County, New 
York, December 13th, 1829. As a boy he worked on the farm and not 
until he reached his majority did he have opportunity for an academic 
training, which he received in the Union and Lowville academies of his 
native state. He spent some time as a teacher in New York, Virginia 
and Mississippi. While following this profession he studied law and 
was admitted to practice in the New York Courts in 1855. In 1859 he 
carne to Parkersburg, Virginia, and the following year entered a law 
office at Marietta, Ohio. At the beginning of the war he organized a 
company of volunteers, which became a part of the Sixty-Third Ohio 
Regiment, one of the best regiments in the Civil War. On account of 
disability he left the service and resumed his profession. Mr. Shaw has 
fine literary taste and his poetry shows keen ability. He is a thorough 
student of economics and of current events. 



170 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications, 

''The human race are equal — Free ; 
Mankind are born to liberty." 
O, matchless boon of human years, 
We celebrate thy pioneers. 

We meet within that temple gate 
Where human slavery met its fate. 
Here conscience trembles not in fear, 
And woman walks the earth a peer. 
Each plants his fig tree and his vine, 
And says, "Apart of earth is mine; 
I own the land that's great — that's free; 
I worship God in liberty." 

To lands untrodden by the slave 

Earth's heroes came, the strong, the brave, 

Who freedom's race had nobly run 

When marching with a Washington. 

They bought these hills at costly price — 

They tendered life a sacrifice; 

Their manhood's strength, their manhood's years 

They spent in war, in blood, in tears ; 

They grandly grew to freedom's height 

In freedom's struggle for the right. 

Their works stand out in bold relief, 

All others lean upon their sheaf. 

The Mayflower on Atlantic's sea 
Brought base alloy with liberty; 
The Mayflower on Ohio's breast 
Brought Freedom pure unto the West. 
Glorious day — glorious birth — 
While human hands shall till the earth. 

The freedom flag that they unfurled 
Shall float in triumph o'er the world. 
Our freedom made New England free, 
Led Middle States to libertv. 



Poems on Ohio. 171 

More glorious than all the rest 
Made sunny south free as the West. 
That banner crosses o'er the waves, 
And lo ! it breaks the chains of slaves ; 
'Tis planted on the old world's turf, 
And Russia fears her Cossack serf; 
It floats above the soil of Spain 
And rends her bondsmen's links in twain. 

And marching on in triumph still 

It carries freedom to Brazil. 

For human slavery cannot be 

Where floats the flag of liberty. 

It bears aloft upon its folds 

The thought that earth's redemption holds, 

"The human race are equal — Free ; 

Mankind are born to liberty." 

The little spring that sparkled here 
In billows washes o'er the sphere. 
All men shall celebrate the day 
When freedom here her altar lay 
As we to-day here celebrate 
Her pioneers her model State. 

Wise men, they left the cultured East, 

Fought savage men and savage beast 

Within the western wilderness. 

And made it bloom with loveliness. 

Grand was their thought their purpose led, 

Magnificent its growth and spread ; 

For human records give no age 

That ears a brighter, purer page. 

To all the people gave the helm 

And launched their state "The Freedom Realm", 

Its keel and ribs are grand — are great — 

"All the people are the state. 



172 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

And of and by them, government, 
And for them all its blessings sent." 
And say what shall its limits be 
And what our Freedom's boundary? 
The narrow breadth of fifty States 
Already in or at the gates ? 
Nay more, far more than all of these 
Our country's limit shall be seas ; 
Columbia on every side 
Thou shalt be washed by ocean's tide. 
Nor then is Freedom's measure full, 
In other lands shall people rule ; 
And when all men in every land, 
On human rights in freedom stand 
Shall freedom in her grandest years 
Plant laurels o'er her pioneers. 



LOG CABIN SONG.^-2 

Tune — Highland Laddie. 
By Otway Curry. (1804-1855.)^' 



3 



Oh, where, tell me where, was your Buckeye Cabin made? 
Oh, where, tell me where, was your Buckeye Cabin made? 
'Twas built among the merry boys who wield the plow and spade. 
Where the log-cabins stand in the bonny Buckeye shade. 
Cho. : 'Twas built, etc. 



"^Whig campaign song of 1840. 

^^^ Otway Curry was born on the present site of GreenjEield, Ohio. 
His father had been a Revolutionary soldier and his mother was a wo- 
man of hterary inclinations. In 1823 he went to Lebanon, Ohio, where he 
learned the carpenter's trade, at which he labored for some years. While 
thus engaged he began writing his lyrics for the press. For ten years 
he was a farmer in Union County, though he still continued his literary 
work. He served three terms in the Ohio Legislature and was a member 
of the Second Ohio Constitutional Convention. With William D. Gal- 



Poems on Ohio. 173 

Oh, what, tell me what, is to be your cabin's fate? 
Oh, what, tell me what, is to be your cabin's fate? 
We'll wheel it to the Capitol and place it there elate, 
As a token and a sign of the bonnie Buckeye State. 
Cho. : Wx'll wheel it, etc. 

Oh, why, tell me why, does your Buckeye Cabin go ? 
Oh, why, tell me why, does your Buckeye Cabin go? 
It goes against the spoilsmen — for well the builders know 
It was Harrison that fought for the cabins long ago. 
Cho. : It goes against, etc. 

Oh, who fell before him in battle — tell me who ? 
Oh, who fell before him in battle — tell me who? 
He drove the savage legions and British army, too, 
At the Rapids and the Thames and old Tippecanoe. 
Cho. : He drove, etc. 

By whom, tell me whom, will the battle next be won? 
By whom, tell me whom, will the battle next be won? 
The spoilsmen and leg treasurers will soon begin to run ! 
And the log-cabin candidate will march to Washington ! 
Cho. : The spoilsmen, etc. 

Oh, what, tell me what, then will little Martin do? 
Oh, what, tell me what, then will little Martin do? 
He'll follow in the footsteps of Price and Swartout, too. 
While the log-cabins ring again with old Tippecanoe ! 
Cho. : He'll follow, etc. 



lagher for six months he was associated editor of the Hesperian, a 
monthly magazine published in Columbus. Removing to Xenia, Ohio, 
he became the proprietor of the Greene County Torch Light for a period 
of two years, after which he went to Marysville, and began the practice 
of law. He died in that city February 17, 1855. 



174 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

ANNIVERSARY ODE/^* 

By D. Bethune Duffield. (1821-?)^-* 

Come ye, whose feet old Erie kindly laves, 
And join to pour an anthem o'er her waves, 
This day to her broad breast she calls the free, 
And bids them welcome to her jubilee. 

Thou stately Queen of all the lordly lakes 
Down where Niagara's thundering chorus breaks, 
Snatch forth a strain of nature's lofty praise 
To swell the chant thy sister cities raise. 
Come thou, old Erie, worthy of thy name, 
Bearing the trophy of the hero's fame, — 
The fragments of that torn and shattered wreck 
With battle's footprints still upon the deck ; 
And thou, too, ancient ''City of the Straits," 
Bring forth the guns that once assailed thy gates. 
And thou, fair Forest City, gliding from thy grove 
Come like the swan and o'er the waters move. 
And coy Sandusky, nestled in thy bay. 
Where lovers dream the evening hours away, 
Come with Monroe from river Rasin's shore 
And proud Toledo, valiant as of yore; 



*^* Ode read at the forty-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Lake 
Erie, at Put-in-Bay, September 10, 1858. 

*^* D, Bethune Duffield, son of Rev. George Duffield and Isabella 
Graham Duffield, was born in Carlisle, Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, 
where he resided until their removal to Philadelphia. He graduated at 
the Yale Law School in 1842 and was admitted to the practice of his 
profession at Detroit, Michigan, the following year. He took an active 
part in the establishment of the free common school system in Detroit 
and served as President of the Board of Education for some time. Be- 
sides his efforts along educational and literary lines, he excelled as a 
lecturer. His poems were the spontaneous productions, performed in the 
midst of an active professional life. Among his poems might be men- 
tioned "The Maid of Chamouni," 'The Sounding Sea," and "A Sabbath 
Sunset Prayer." 



Poems on Ohio. 175 

Come, grave Maumee, for years full-widely known, 
By heroes, and a fever all thine own. 

Let all our cities in one common hymn 
Send Perry's praise around old Erie's brim. 
Perry the young, Perry the bold and brave, 
The Christian hero of our common wave ; 
Let all the bugles their best music pour. 
Let all the cannon in glad triumph road, 
And all their echoes, leaping from each shore. 

Still chime his name 

And lofty fame 
Forever, and forevermore. 

New generations here this day we see 
With brilliant pomp and gay festivity. 
With lute and tabret and the vocal chime. 
That rings far down the avenues of time, 
With brazen trump and clanging drum and bell, 
In soul refreshing strains again to tell 

How well, 

How bravely well. 

Great Perry stood 

When shot and shell 

Around him fell, 
And vexed and seethed old Erie's peaceful flood. 
And dyed her emerald waves with valor's precious blood. 

Then let us send the towering shaft on high. 

To court new blessings from each morning sky; 

To teach our rising youth on land and flood, 

That liberty is worthy of their blood; 

And on its tablet write in boldest line, 

Those words that round this lake should ever shine — 

That modest message of our hero's pen — 

Long may it live among our naval men, 

Long gleam from all our armed forts and towers — 

"We've met the enemy, and they are ours !" 



176 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

OHIO CENTENNIAL ODE. 

By Colonel Coates Kinney. (1826-1904.)^'^ 

[Delivered in the Coloseum, Columbus, Ohio, on the Opening Day, 
September 4, 1888, of the State Celebration of the Arrival of the Cen- 
tennial Year.] 

In what historic thousand years of man 

Has there been builded such a State as this? 
Yet, since the clamor of the axes ran 

Along the great woods, with the groan and hiss 
And crash of trees, to hew thy groundsils here. 

Ohio ! but a century has gone. 
And thy republic's building stands the peer 

Of any that the sun and stars shine on. 

Not on a fallen empire's rubbish heap, 

Not on old quicksands wet with blood of wrong, 
Do the foundations of thy structure sleep. 

But on a ground of nature, new and strong. . 



'^® Coates Kinney, one of the most delightful of Ohio poets of whom 
William Dean Hov^rells said "is a truly great poet" and of whom the lit- 
erary critics have expressed many beautiful things, was born in Yates 
County, New York. His ancestry dates back to the Mayflower. When 
a lad of seventeen he came to Warren County, Ohio, where he attended 
the local schools, when he was not otherwise engaged in manual labor. 
He became a school teacher, studied law and wrote for the press. His 
first poem to attract attention was a lyric, "Rain on the Roof", which 
appeared in 1849. He now wrote considerably for some of the best pub- 
lications of the time, attended college at Antioch under Horace Mann, 
was admitted to the bar and began to practice law. 

The Civil War found him ready to serve his country and for four 
and a half years he filled the post of Major and Paymaster of the Army. 
After the war he took an active part in politics, as a writer, and even 
served a term in the Ohio Senate. His published works are : Keenka 
and other poems, (1855) ; Lyrics of the Ideal and Real, (1887) ; Mists of 
Fire, a Trilogy; and some Eclogs, (1899). He is also the author of some 
excellent unpublished verses and essays. He died on January 24, 1004, 
and lies buried at Waynesville, Warren County, Ohio. 



Poems on Ohio. 177 

Men that had faced the Old World seven years 

In battle, on the Old World turned their backs 
And, quitting Old World thoughts and hopes and fears, 

With only rifle, powder-horn and axe 
For tools of civilization, won their way 

Into the wilderness, against wild man and beast. 
And laid the wood-glooms open to the day. 

And from the sway of savagery released 
The land to nobler uses of a higher race ; 

Where Labor, Knowledge, Freedom, Peace and Law 
Have wrought all miracles of dream in place 

And time — ay, more than ever dream foresaw. 

A hundred years of Labor ! Labor free ! 

Our river ran between it and the curse. 
And freemen proved how toil can glory be. 

The heroes that Ohio took to nurse 

(As the she-wolf the founders of old Rome) 
Their deeds of fame let history rehearse 

And oratory celebrate; but see 
This paradise their hands have made our home ! 

Nod, plumes of wheat, wave, vanderoles of corn, 

Toss, orchard-oriflammes, swing, wreath of vine. 

Shout, happy farms, with voice of sheep and kine. 
For the old victories conquered here on these 

The fields of Labor when, ere we were born. 
The fathers fought the armies of the trees, 

And, chopping out the night, chopt in the morn ! 
A hundred years of Knowledge ! We have mixt 

More brains with Labor in the century 
Than man had done since the decree was fixt 

That Labor was his doom and dignity. 
All honor to those far-foreworking men 

Who, as they stooped their sickles in to fling, 

Or took the wheat upon the cradle's swing, 
Thought of the boy, the little citizen 



12 



178 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

There gathering sheaves, and planned the school for him, 

Which would wind up the clock-work of his mind 
To cunning moves of wheels and blades that skim 

Across the fields and reap and rake and bind ! 
They planned the schools — the woods were full of schools I 

Our learning has not soared but it has spread : 
Ohio's intellects are sharpened tools 

To deal with daily fact and daily bread. 
The starry peaks of knowledge in thin air 

Her culture has not climbed, but on the plain. 
In whatsoever is to do or dare 

With mind or matter, there behold her reign. 
The axemen who chopt out the clearing here 

Where stands the Capital, could they today 

Arise and see our hundred years' display — 
Steam-wagons in their thundering career — 
Wires that a friend's voice waft across a State 

And wires that wink a thought across the sea, 
And wires wherein imprisoned lightnings wait 

To leap forth at the turning of a key — 
Could they these shows of mind and matter note. 

Machines that almost conscious souls confess, 

Seeming to will and think — the printing press, 
Not quite intelligent enough to vote — 
Could they arise these marvels to behold, 

What would to them the vast Republic seem — 
The State historified in volumes old, 

Or prophesied in Grecian Plato's dream ? 

A hundred years of Freedom! Freedom such 

No other people on the earth had known 

Till our America the world had shown 
What Freedom meant. No slave might touch 
Our earth, no master's lash outrage our heaven ; 

The Declaration of the Great July, 
Fired by our Ordinance of Eighty-seven 

Flamed from the River to the northern sky ; — 



Poems on Ohio. 179 

Ay, that flame rose against the Arctic stars, 

And shone a new aurore across the land, 
A Body scored with stripes of whip and scars 

Of branding-iron seemed to understand — 
Soulless though reckoned by our Union's pact — 

That It was man, for whom that heavenly sign 
Lit up the North — and while the blood hounds tracked 

Him footsore through Kentucky, stars benign 
Befriended him and brought him to our shore, 

A stranger, frightened, hungry, travel-worn; 
And we laid hands on him and gave him o'er 

Again to bondage as in fealty sworn. 
So rich in Freedom we had none to give I 

While we might quaff we could not pass the cup ; 
No slave should touch foot to our soil and live 

Upon it slave — he must be given up ! 
When that first man was wrested from our State, 

Then Slavery had crossed the Rubicon ; 
Then Freedom was the whole Republic's fate ; 

Then John Brown's soul began its marching on; 
Then the Ohio Idea had to go 

Where'er the banner of the Union flew, 
From the northmost limits in Alaskan snow 

To the southmost in the Mexic waters blue. 
A hundred years of Peace ! Yes, less the four 

(Our little Indian squabbles were not war), 
The four when we, in battle's shock and roar. 

Declared that Freedom was worth dying for. 
Ohio gave to that great fight for Man 
Her Grant, her Sherman, and her Sheridan, 

And her victorious hundred thousands more. 
Victorious, yes, though legions of them sleep 

In garments rolled in blood on foughten fields — 
Though still the mothers and the widows weep 

For the slain heroes borne home on their shields. 
Their glorious victory this day behold ; 

They conquered peace ; and where their manly frays 



180 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Across the land of bondage stormed and rolled, 

Millions of grateful freedmen hymn their praise. 

Ohio honors them with happy tears : 

The battles that they braved for her, 
The banner that they waved for her. 
The Freedom that they saved for her, 

Shall keep their laurels green a thousand years. 

A hundred years of Law ! The people's vvill 
The might of the majority, 
The right of the minority, 
The light hand with authority, 
We promised with the purpose to fulfill; 
But the contagion of the border-taint 

Blackened our statutes with its shameful stain, 
And left the color of our conscience faint 

Till freshened by the battle-storm's red rain. 
Ay, war was legislated ; it has cast 

The "White Man's Government" out into the nighty 
And Labor, Knowledge, Freedom, Peace at last 
Stand color-blind in Law's resplendent light. 

Now Hail, my State of States! thy justice wins — 

Thy justice and thy valor now are one; 
Thou hast arisen and thy little sins 

Are spots of darkness lost upon the sun. 
Thy sun is up — O, may it never set ! — 

These hundred years were but thy morning red: 
It shall be forenoon for thy glory yet 

When all who this day look on thee are dead. 
O, splendor of the noon awaiting thee ! 
O, rights of man and heights of manhood free! 
Hail, beautiful Ohio that shalt be! 

Hail, Ship of State ! and take our parting cheers ! 
Ah, God ! that we might gather here to see 

Thy sails loom in, swoln with a thousand years. 



Poems on Ohio. 181 

A hundred years of Freedom! Freedom such 

No other people on the earth had knozvn 

Till our America the zvorld had shoivn 
What Freedom meant. No foot of slave might touch 
Our earth, no master s lash outrage our heaven. 



THE CENTENNIAL ODE. 

By John Milburn Harding. (1874-.)^-^ 

Columbia's pride, Ohio, grand and fair, 

Where wealth and beauty are beyond compare, 
Where labor, truth and knowledge have control 

Thy name is peer upon the honor roll. 
Ohio, first-born of the great Northwest, 

Nursed to thy statehood at the Nation's breast 
And taught wisdom of the Ordinance Rule — 

No slav'ry chain but e'er the public school, 
Ohio, name for what is good and grand. 

With pride we hail thee as our native land; 
With jealous pride we sing our heartfelt lay 

To laud thy name this first Centennial Day. 
One hundred years and half as many more 

Ago, from ripples on proud Erie's shore 
Far to the south where, beautiful and grand, 

The placid river's wave kissed untrod sand, 



^^' John Milburn Harding was born May 6th, 1874, on a farm in 
Guernsey county, Ohio. While quite young the family removed to Free- 
port township, Harrison county, where his boyhood was spent on a farm 
and at the district school. At the age of twenty he began to teach, sup- 
plementing his education with two terms at Scio College. He studied 
law and after his admission to the bar began to practice at Caldwell, 
Ohio. Some years ago he went to Lorain, Ohio, where he has been a 
member of the law firm of Snyder and Harding. He is now serving 
his second year as Police Prosecutor of that city. October 29, 1898, Mr. 
Harding married Miss Cora Winters Kuntz, of Morgan county, Ohio. 
They have one son, Ray De Mont, born April 11, 1901. The "Centennial 
Ode" first appeared in the Ohio State Journal. He has also written to 
some extent of the natural scenes and early historical activities in the 
Tuscarawas valley. 



182 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

The dusky twilight of the forest old 

Concealed the native Indian, wild and bold. 
Within the awe of that primeval wood 

The white-skin captive lonely, pining, stood 
And longed to lift the prison veil to roam 

From savag'ry to join dear ones at home. 
Here lived the greatest, noblest Indian men. 

Retreating from their Eastern glade and glen, 
They crossed the River, called this land their own 

And hoped to hunt and fish and live alone. 
Here came another Race. The renegade. 

The scout, the trapper, followed each his trade. 
Here, too, the priest and bishop, with sad face, 

Converted souls, built missions, "Tents of Grace. "^^® 
But they are gone. The annals of the strife 

That brought to one race death another life. 
Have oft been writ, by deeds not free from stains, 

In noblest blood that coursed a race's veins. 
Then came forth through the gateway of the West 

That band of war-scarred soldiers, all in quest 
Of peaceful homes. Their river voyage past, 

The Mayflower of the West, her moorings fast 
To Buckeye faith. With noble, pure desire 

Debarked that crew — to found a new empire. 
They brought with them their all; but ere they came 

The purest laws that Liberty could frame. 
More settlers followed them. With steady stroke 

And fire they cleared the land of native oak, 
And reared their cabin homes. Soon did appear 

The rude log-school house of the pioneer 
One decade and a half of honest toil 

Create a state of Freemen on Free soil. 
One century of statehood — statehood such 

As all the world proclaims the guiding touch 
Of man's long strife for liberty, and one 

Full-gemmed with pure deeds that men have done. 



^^ The 'Tents of Grace" were the mission stations of the Moravians* 



Poems on Ohio. ISS 

When Tyranny in dark expiring throe, 

A few times dared on our horizon show 
A cloud of war, Ohio's noble sons 

Were first to bear and last to stack their guns. 
With Erie's waters mixed their crimson blood ; 

They reached and crossed the Rio Grande's flood; 
They ''Starred and Striped" the Montezuma's walls 

They filled the ranks at Lincoln's sev'ral calls, 
And fought till Freedom won. Ohio's roll 

Was near four-hundred thousand men, each soul 
Free-born and taught, for that great civil strife. 

Ohio men in every fight were rife. 
In cabinet and battle camp each plan, 

A Stanton, Chase, a Sherman, Sheridan, 
Or Grant direction gave. The slave is free. 

The breeze but one flag floats from sea to sea. 
Pure, noble women, honest learned men 

For peace and progress here have ever been. 
Each morning's breeze, throughout our hills and dells,. 

Wafts on its wings chimes of ten thousand bells; 
Ten thousand fields of sheep and kine give voice; 

Ten thousand whistling factories rejoice; 
Four million people rise from slumber sweet 

In happy homes their daily task to meet. 
Ohio, pearl of Western forest sea, 

Where lived a race of dark antiquity, 
To speak to us of industry and toil 

With tongues entombed in mounds of clay and soil ; 
Ohio, guardian of eternal right 

The lamp of justice burned but dimly bright 
Till thou, from off thy Northwest throne 

Interpreted, with will and arm of stone, 
That grand old page, where Heaven's guided pen 
Had said, ''Born free and equal are all men ;" 
Ohio, may thy "Jewels' " number rise 

To guard thy name a thousand centuries. 
Caldwell, Ohio, February 4, ipo^. 



184 Ohia Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

OHIO'S SOLDIER DEAD.^-^ 

By Thomas C. Harbaugh. 

Upon a lofty peak I stood, the heavens overhead; 

I asked the Night to say where sleep our soldier dead; 

Where are the men who came not home when War its banners 

furl'd, 
And, flushed with victory, we stood before the world? 
From North and South, from East and West came ansv/ers on 

the breeze. 
And zephyrs from the orange groves came to me there to tell 
The winds and mountains round me swept the storm-breath of 

the seas, 
Of God-loved angel-guarded graves in many a distant dell. 

Where the mighty Mississippi rolls in grandeur to the sea 

And where Potomac rushes past the folded tents of Lee, 

Where Lookout mountain to the sky majestic lifts his crest, 

Where sweeps the old Missouri thro' the prairies of the West ; 

In forests of palmetto, in shaded brakes of pine. 

Where seldom seeks the busy bee the blossoms of the vine ; 

In shrouds that are immortal, won on fields of carnage red. 

Waiting for the final muster, sleep Ohio's soldier dead. 

At Gettysburg and Arlington they fill a hero's tomb. 

And where the hands of hunger shut on them the gates of doom ; 

On Georgia's peaceful plains they lie, their dreams of battle 

o'er — 
Ohio's sons who marched away to come home nevermore. 

Their arms are stacked, their tents are struck, for them on land 

and sea 
The battle drums of fame have beat the soldier's reveille ; 
The flags they crowned with victory o'er them their splendors 

shed, 
And Honor guards the spot where sleep Ohio's hero dead. 
They camp on many a well won hill, they sleep on many a plain, 
They dream where once the battleships with iron cut the main. 



^^ Courtesy of The Ohio Magazine. 



Poems on Ohio. 185 

The roses of Virginia bloom above a missing host, 

Their graves are mile-stones all the way from Nashville to the 

coast ; 
They're touching elbows yet, I know, where once they loved to 

stand, 
Where sings the Rappahannock and where rolls the Cumberland ; 
The roses of the Golden West their snowy petals shed 
Upon the dewy pillows of Ohio's soldier dead. 

To the stars that shine at even there is not one missing grave, 
Their mellow light falls softly on the loved and absent brave, 
And he who sees the sparrow's fall hath marked the holy spots. 
And angel hands have planted there His own forget-me-nots. 
W^e've left them to His keeping, for we know He'll keep them 

well, 
Tho' lost they are to us today in wilderness and dell ; 
And tho' we never more shall hear their gay and gallant tread. 
We know God's bugles shall awake Ohio's soldier dead. 

O sleepers on the mountain side ! O campers neath the pines I 
O ye o'er whom are blooming now the gentle southern vines. 

Beside you I would stand today, the azure arch above, 
And crown you with some symbol of Ohio's deathless love. 
She holds you in her heart of hearts, for her on land or foam 
You fought and sent her banners back, but never more came 

home ; 
The sun upon our grand old state his beams will cease to shed, 
Ere she forgets one comrade of her own heroic dead ! 



TO CINCINNATI/3« 

By Edward A. M'Laughlin. (1798 — .) 

City of gardens, verdant parks, sweet bowers ; 
Blooming upon thy bosom, bright and fair, 
Wet with the dews of spring and summer's showers. 
And fanned by every breath of wandering air; 



^^^ This poem appeared as one of a collection printed in Cincinnati 
in 1841. The general title of the book was "Lovers of the Deep." To 
any one who is acquainted with the culture of Cincinnati, the prophetic 
vision of the poet can be keenly appreciated. 



186 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Rustling the foliage of thy green groves, where 
The blue-bird's matin wakes the smiling morn, 
And sparkling humming-birds of plumage rare, 
With tuneful pinions on the zephyrs borne. 
Disport the flowers among, and glitter and adorn : 

Fair is thy seat, in soft recumbent rest 

Beneath the grove-clad hills ; whence morning wings 

The gentle breezes of the fragrant west, 

That kiss the surface of a thousand spring: 

Nature, her many-colored mantle flings 

Around thee, and adorns thee as a bride; 

While polished Art his gorgeous tribute brings, 

And dome and spire ascending far and wide 

Their pointed shadows dip in thy Ohio's tide. 

So fair in infancy — O what shall be 

Thy blooming prime expanding like the rose 

In fragrant beauty; when a century 

Hath passed upon thy birth and time bestows 

The largess of a world that freely throws 

Her various tribute from remotest shores. 

To enrich the western Rome : Here shall repose 

Science and art ; and from times subtile ores — 

Nature's unfolded page — knowledge enrich her stores. 

Talent and Genius to thy feet shall bring 

Their brilliant offerings of immortal birth: 

Display the secrets of Pieria's spring, 

Castalia's fount of melody and mirth : 

Beauty and grace and chivalry and worth. 

Wait on the Queen of Arts in her own bowers, 

Perfumed with all the fragrance of the earth 

From blooming shrubbery and radiant flowers ; 

And hope with rapture wed life's calm and peaceful hours. 

Oft as the spring wakes on the verdant year, 
And nature glows in fervid beauty dress'd. 
The loves and graces shall commingle here, 
To charm the queenly City of the West; 



Poems on Ohio. 18? 

Her stately youth with noble warmth impress'd 

Her graceful daughters, smiling as in May — 

Apollos these, and Hebes those confessed; 

Bloom in her warm and fertilizing ray, 

While round their happy sires the cherub infants play. 

So sings the Muse as she with fancy's eye, 
Scans, from imagination's lofty height, 
Thy radiant beaming day — where it doth lie 
In the deep future ; glowing on the night 
From whose dark womb, empires unveil to light; 
Mantled and diademed and sceptered there 
Thou waitest but the advent of thy flight. 
When like a royal Queen, stately and fair, 
The City of the West ascends the regal chair. 



A PROPHECY.^2^ 

By Return Jonathan Meigs. 

Enough of tributary praise is paid 

To virtue living or to merit, dead. 

To happier themes the rural muse invites. 

To calmest pleasures and serene delights. 

To us, glad fancy brightest prospects shows ; 

Rejoicing nature all around us glow ; 

Here late the savage, hid in ambush, lay, 

Or roamed the uncultured valleys for his prey; 

Here frowned the forest with terrific shade; 

No cultured fields exposed the opening glade. 

How changed the scene ! See nature clothed in smiles 

With joy repays the laborer for his toils ; 



"^ At a celebration, on July 4, 1789, at Marietta, the above line? 
concluded the oration of the day. Meigs was then a 3'Oung lawyer. He 
later occupied many places of honor, among which was governor of 
Ohio. He died in 1825 and his grave is in Mound Cemetery, Marietta. 
Doubtless this was the first poem written in the Northwest Territory. 



188 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Her hardy gifts rough industry extends. 

The groves bow down, the lofty forest bends ; 

On every side the cleaving axes sound — 

The oak and tall beech thunder to the ground ; 

And see the spires of Marietta rise, 

And domes and temples swell into the skies ; 

Here justice reign and foul dissension cease, 

Her walks be pleasant and her paths be peace. 

Here swift Muskingum rolls his rapid waves ; 

There fruitful valleys fair Ohio laves ; 

On its smooth surface gentle zephyrs play, 

The sunbeams tremble with a placid ray. 

What future harvests on his bosom glide 

And loads of commerce swell the ''downward tide." 

Where Mississippi joins in length'ning sweep 

And rolls majestic to the Atlantic deep. 

Along our b'anks see distant villas spread ; 

Here waves the corn and there extends the mead ; 

Here sound the murmurs of the gurgling rills ; 

There bleat the flocks upon a thousand hills. 

Fair opes the lawn — the fertile fields extend 

The kindly flowers from smiling heaven descend; 

The skies drop fatness on the blooming vale; 

From spicy shrubs ambrosial sweets exhale ; 

Fresh fragrance rises from the floweret's bloom, 

And ripening vineyards breathe a "glad perfume." 

Gay swells the music of the warbling grove 

And all around is melody and love. 

Here may religion fix her blessed abode. 

Bright emanation of creative God ; 

Here charity extend her liberal hand 

And mild benevolence o'er spread the land ; 

In harmony the social virtues blend ; 

Joy without measure, rapture without end ! 



Poems on Ohio. 189 

POEM OF LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY.^^^ 

(Written in 1842.) 

Hail ! Sister, of the beauteous West, 

Throned on thy river's sparkHng tide. 

Who still seeks, with pitying breast, 
The sick to heal, the lost to guide. 

Still o'er thy wounded children bend, 

With bounteous hand, and kindness true, 

Intent thine utmost skill to lend 

The broken mind to bliild anew. 

The care, the cure to thee are dear, 

Of ills to which the world is blind, 
Or, sunk in apathy severe, 

To torture and despair consigned. 

Clothed and restored to Reason's sway 
Thou joy'st thy suffering ones to see, 

And hear them pour the votive lay 

To Heaven, and happiness, and thee. 

Say, is a nation's truest praise 

In pomp of lordly power to shine. 
The o'ershadowing pyramid to raise, 

Or hord the treasure of the mine? 

No, no ! with sympathizing heart 

From sorrow's grasp the prey to wrest; 

And thou hast chosen that better part; 
God bless thee. Sister of the West ! 



^^- Mrs. Sigourney is known as the "American Hemans." She was 
born in Connecticut in 1791 and died in the city of Hartford, 1865. She 
wrote and compiled many books for the young. The above poem no 
doubt refers to the building and opening of the Asylum for the Insane, 
at Columbus, since this was the first institution for the treatment of the 
insane west of the Alleghanies. 



190 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

THE NORTHWEST.^34 

By George Lansing Taylor. (1835-1903.)^^^ 

Hail to the "Great Northwest/' as it stood in the days of our 

grandsires ! 
Vast territorial realm, and fresh as at dawn of creation,^ — 
Fair as the Garden of Eden, and fraught with fertility bound- 
less, — 
Cradle of five great States, of imperial riches and glory ! 
Hail to its limitless forests, unscathed by the ax or the firebrand ; 
Solemn, majestic, the pillared and leafy cathedrals of nature, 
Organ'd with anthems ^olian, choired by invisible spirits. 
Mightiest sylvarum that e'er awed the realms of mortals ! 
Hail to its prairies, rolling in billowy oceans of verdure. 
Silt of pre-Adamite seas, and richer than Nile's inundations. 
Gemmed with blossoms by millions, as bright as the stars in the 

heavens. 
Waiting to teem with culture and bread for a world's population ! 
Hail to its far-flowing rivers, voluminous, countless, and pouring 
Floods unexhausted, prolific, the highways of travel and traffic : 
Vast Mississippi, Ohio, Maumee, Wisconsin and Wabash, 
Bright Illinois, Rock River, Muskingum, St. Clair and Scioto — 
Streams unnamed and unsung, all yet to be famous and classic 1 
Hail to the five Great Lakes, the American Mediterranean, 



^^^ George Lansing Taylor was born at Skaneateles, New York, in 
1835. He descended from a long line of New England Puritans. When 
twelve years of age his parents moved to Fayette, Ohio. He became a 
student of Ohio Wesleyan University but afterward went to Columbia, 
where he graduated in 1861. Upon graduation he was for a time assist- 
ant editor of the Western Christian Advocate. He retired from this po- 
sition to enter the Methodist ministry and was identified with the most 
prominent churches in New York, Brooklyn, New Haven and elsewhere. 
In 1887 he read the centennial poem of Columbia University. Dr. Taylor 
was versatile in his accomplishments, — a preacher of force ; a historian, 
geographer, and naturalist ; a poet and litteratem, who contributed largely 
to numerous periodicals in prose and verse. He died of paralysis in the 
Methodist Episcopal Hospital of Brooklyn, Sunday, July 26th, 1903. 

^^* This Ohio Centennial Poem appearel first in the Western Chris- 
tian Advocate. 



Poems on Ohio. 191 

Fresh as the mountain springs, and blue as the azure above them, 
Deep as the seas, and as wide, with room for the fleets of the na- 
tions, 
Bearing today on their bosoms a commerce that rivals Atlantic's ! 
Hail to the air of this realm, its climate, inspiring and tonic ! 
Hail to its quarries and mines — iron, lead, copper and carbon. 
Limestone and freestone and grindstone, to sharpen the sword 

or the plowshare 
Oil from the flinty rock, and gas from retorts subterranean — 
Factors for industries vaster than ever the Old World 

astounded ! 
Such was the "Great Northwest," as it stood unexplored and 

unpeopled. 
Stretching from blue Alleghanies to far-off Father of Waters ; — 
Such in its virgin perfection, a continent's garden and glory, 
Fairest cluster of gems in the New World's diadem destined. 



OHIO. 

1802 — 1902. 
By Kate Brownlee Sherwood. (1841 — y^^ 

Who comes here clad with resolute desire. 
With arms of iron and with limbs of steel? 
Who comes outreaching torch of holy fire, 
To fan the forges and to turn the wheel? 
Who, with calm tread and eye that falters not, 
With steadfast gaze on things immutable. 
Pursues the mighty measures of her pace. 
Ascends to heaven or descends to hell. 
To fathom all the heights and depths of thought 
And solve the ponderous problems of a race? 



^^ Mrs. Sherwood was born in Poland, Mahoning county. Through- 
out her life she has been engaged in philanthropic work, especially for 
those who suffered in the Civil War. Her writings are mostly patriotic, 
many being soldier lyrics, which were sung by the Union boys from 
'61 to '65. 



192 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Hers is the crown of nations, her confines 

Enshrine the trophies of abounding years; 

The blood of heroes purples all her vines, 

By valor sown and wet with woman's tears. 

Her fellowship is wrought of centuries 

Of prayers that kindle and of deeds that burn 

Within the secret chambers of the soul, — 

Flames from the altars of the far eterne: 

Her draughts are honeyed from the bloomy leas, 

The dew and sunshine mingled in the bowl. 

How happy he, where'er his feet have trod, 
Who claims her mother, shares in her estate ; 
His heart returns across the ocean broad, 
To hail her mistress of o'ermastering fate. 
The tongues of prophecy have winged her fame. 
The blood of martyrs writ her name on high ; 
And poesy has struck the ecstatic lyre, 
Thrilling the sounding squadrons trampling by. 
To rout the mustering embassies of shame, 
And bear a sign from struggling sire to sire. 
O happy hills, O sweet sequestered vales. 
Whereon the flocks and herds, in verdure, leap ! 
O harbors speeding far the spreading sails. 
O'er lengthening lakes to the wide-circling deep \ 
O jeweled cities of the jeweled West! 
A hundred years of plentitude are thine, 
A hundred years of dreaming mighty dreams, 
With ax and anvil, plummet, rule and line! 
A hundred years of babes upon thy breast. 
Full fed and nurstled with unfailing streams ! 

Behold them coming, coming to the feast, 
Spread wide and ample 'neath the buckeye bloom. 
The migrant sons that woo the opulent East, 
The migrant sons from Western glade and gloom. 



Poems on Ohio, 193 

Behold them coming, men in virtue brave, 

And women dowered with the diadems 

Of regal chastity and peerless youth. 

In hosts invincible no barrier stems, 

Clad in the beauty of supernal calm, 

On fields of glory by eternal truth. 

Throw wide the doors, our mother feasts tonight! 

These are the guards that wait upon her gates! 

Fling wide your arms, your shields are honor bright I 

Keep wide your hearts, a world upon them waits ! 

Wisdom and Glory, Honor and Renown, 

Sit with her at her feast, as friend and guest, 

And proud Invention with her thousand hands, 

Brings greetings by grim Destiny expressed : 

"Who kneels to duty shall put on the crown 

Love-wrought of jewels from predestined lands." 



MY HOME ON THE OLD OHIO. 

By Will Lamartine Thompson. (1847-1909.)^^^ 

Far away on the banks of the old Ohio 

Down where the silver maples grow, 
Where the river runs deep in the broad green valley, 

Oh. there's where I lived long ago. 



"®WiIl Lamartine Thompson, the well-known and popular song 
writer, was born at East Liverpool, Ohio, November 7, 1847. His father 
was Josiah Thompson, a successful business man and once a member of 
the state legislature.. The father and mother were great lovers of music 
and encouraged the natural ability of their son, who at an early age 
began giving piano concerts. When only sixteen years old he composed 
two songs which were published. His education was secured at Union 
College and later at the Boston Music School. Among his published 
songs, which have become popular, might be mentioned : "Gathering 
Shells from the Seashore"; "Drifting with the Tide"; "My Home on the 
Old Ohio"; "The Old Tramp"; "God Save Our Union"; "Softly and 
Tenderly Jesus is Calling"; "The Harvest Time is Passing By." Mr. 
Thompson died September 20, 1909, in a New York City Hospital, just 
after he had returned from a European trip, which he had taken for his 
health. 
13 



194 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Ah, well I remember the old cottage home, 

By the side of the long grassy lane; 
How oft have I wished for the moment to come, 

When I'll stand in my old home again. 

CHORUS : 

Then carry me back to the old Ohio, 
Back to my own cottage home 
On the banks of the river, 
'Neath the green weeping willow 
Let me linger and never more roam. 

Oh, 'twas there in the fields and the broad verdant meadows, 

I wandered with playmates that I loved 
'Mid the perfume of flowers and sweet fragrant blossoms. 

Where the birds sing so sweetly we roved ; 
But long, long ago all my playmates were gone, 

One by one 'neath the flowers they have lain; 
On the banks of the river, 'neath the green weeping willow 

I shall ne'er see their dear forms again. 

Many long years have passed since I stood by the river, 

And said, "Goodbye, my happy home." 
Oh, 'twas sad, sad to part with the scenes I loved dearly 

And start o'er the cold world to roam ; 
Take me back, take me back to the dear old farm, 

Where the fields teem with ripe golden grain ; 
For my heart is still longing for my home by the river. 

Take me back and I'll ne'er roam again. 



OHIO. A BUCKEYE SONG. 

By Thomas Mason Earl. 

All hail the good old State where the spreading buckeyes grow, 

The State where I was born ; 
Ohio the golden where the fairest sunbeams glow 

On nodding fields of corn. 



Poems on Ohio. 195 

Or the silvry moonbeams rest on the meadow's dewy breast, 

While whippoorwills sing low; 
And the streamlets purl to me in their journey to the sea 

The songs of the long ago. 

CHORUS : 

Ohio, Ohio, I ever want to be 

A Buckeye from Ohio proud and true; 
O'er memory's beaten track, my thoughts will ere go back 

Ohio, to you, to you. 

There stands my boyhood home by a little shady lane, 

A meadow, an orchard in bloom; 
And old-fashioned garden where the poppies grew so vain, 

And lilacs shed their perfume. 
Oh, I would I were today just a bare-foot boy at play 

By that cottage home once more ; 
As I was when hope was strong, and the summertime was long. 

In those good old days of yore. 

CHORUS : 

Ohio, Ohio I ever want to be, etc. 

In the galaxy of stars that light Old Glory's blue, 

There are many of lordly ray; 
But none fairer than Ohio's with radiance ever true 

In peace or erst in fray. 
And on the scroll of Fame stands many a Buckeye name 

That History calls great ; 
And many a noble deed has won applauded mead 

In the old Buckeye State. 

chorus: 
Ohio, Ohio I ever want to be, etc. 

Where'er I wander in this world of eager strife, 

I'm a Buckeye just the same ; 
And when the summons comes to lay down this coil of life, 

I'll breathe Ohio's name. 



196 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

And when the angel band comes and takes me by the hand 

To lead to the Golden Shore, 
I'll say I want to go by the way of Ohio, 

Thro' the good old State once more. 



CHORUS : 

Ohio, Ohio I ever want to be, etc. 



OHIO CALLS YOU HOME. 

By Helen Frances O'Hara.^" 

Welcome, welcome, to her borders, 

See ! her gates are open wide, 
As she calls the absent thousands 

That have wandered from her side. 
Come ye, from the dim horizon 

On the far-off Western plain; 
Come ye from the pine-clad mountains 

In the distant state of Maine. 

Come from Canada's fair valleys 

Where you erstwhile chose to be; 
Come from where the Mississippi 

Rolls its tribute to the sea. 
All the dear ones that have journeyed 

O'er the bounding ocean's foam; 
Hearken to the joyous summons 

For Ohio calls you home. 



^^^ Helen Frances O'Hara is a native of Springfield, Ohio. She has 
been educated in the schools of Clark and Madison counties and has 
so far written her poetry mostly for weekly papers. Her poerfi given 
here appeared in the Ohio State Journal a few weeks before the "Buckeye 
Home Coming," 1907, Some of her other writings are "The Old Guard, 
Where are They Now," which has been set to music; "In God We 
Trust" ; "Madison Calling Her Children Home", and the "Home Comers' 
Farewell." 



Poems on Ohio. 197 

Home to tread her grassy meadows, 

Home to gaze upon her sky, 
Here to gather recollections 

Of the happy days gone by. 
Though 'twas long ago you wandered 

Out beyond her margin's green; 
She could never once forget you 

Through the years that intervene. 

Through your joys and through your triumphs 

She has felt the same for you, 
And was stirred with deep compassion 

All throughout your sorrows, too. 
Ev'ry tear of disappointment 

That your childhood days had known, 
And each sob that stirred your bosom 

Found an echo in her own. 

She has guarded well your footsteps 

Through your childhood and your prime, 
And has seen you leave her borders, 

For each foreign shore and clime. 
She has watched your onw^ard progress 

As you scaled the heights of Fame; 
And rejoiced at each bright laurel 

That was added to your name. 

So today she sends the message 

To her children each and all ! 
Once again to journey homeward 

When the leaves begin to fall. 
Once again to come and linger 

Here beneath her heaven's blue, 
And to watch the golden glory 

Of her sunset's rosy hue. 

Come and roam beside her rivers 

Where in childhood days you trod, 
When you heard her happy songsters 

Pouring forth their praise to God. 



198 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Come and rest beneath the shadows 
Of the maple's bending bough ; 

Listen, pilgrim, to her pleadings, 
For Ohio calls you now. 

Come and gaze across the landscapes 

Far extending mile by mile ; 
Come and taste the joy of living 

Once again beneath her smile. 
Give her back the cherished homage 

You have held for her for years; 
Grasp her hand, although 'tis bathed 

With an exile's longing tears. 

Pour the words of loyal tribtite 

Now within her waiting ear, 
For 'twill sound like long-lost music 

That she often sighed to hear. 
Sighed to hear with ceaseless yearning 

For the voice so far away, 
For the tone that rang so sweetly 

Through the songs of yesterday. 

She is waiting for the footsteps 

That oft tread her dewy lea; 
For the sounds that long have echoed 

Through the halls of memory. 
Rise up ! nor think of the distance 

Across which you needs must roam; 
But answer the summons proudly. 

For Ohio calls you home. 

London, Ohio. 



Poems on Ohio. 199 

MY BUCKEYE HOME. 

By Harriet M. Howe. (1834-1859.)^^^ 

In the great valley of the West, 

By bounteous heaven so richly bless'd, 

Where Ceres waves her golden crest, 

And plenty makes her throne. 
Not far from blue Sandusky's side. 
Whose waves with grateful murmurs glide, 
To lose themselves in Erie's tide, 

There lies my Buckeye Home. 

When summer spreads her glowing skies, 
I seek where dewy woods arise, 
Unseen by aught save fairy eyes, 
And fanned by zephyr's balmy sighs. 

In pensive rapture roam. 
Lulled by the poet's liquid lay, 
I dream unnumbered hours away. 
While romance spreads her magic sway 

Around my Buckeye Home. 

O'er Nature's book I daily pore, 
Her deepest mysteries ponder o'er — 
The silent wood the lonely shore, 
Yield sweeter wisdom, richer lore, 

Than many an ancient tome. 
I read Almighty love and power, 
Alike in sunshine or in shower, 
A lesson in each leaf or flower, 

Which decks my Buckeye Home. 



^^ Harriet M. Howe was born May 4, 1834, at Elba, Genesee county, 
New York. She began verse-writing at the age of fifteen. Her parents 
came to make their home at Sandusky, Ohio, in 1847, where her father 
iied four years later. Her poems appeared in the Fremont Democratic 
Messenger and in the St. Louis papers. She died March 25, 1859, at 
Green Springs, Ohio. 



200 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Warm glows our hearth each wint'ry night, 
And brighter beams affection's light, 
Where loved and loving ones unite, 
To hallow with each social rite 

The holy shrine of home. 
Fond hearts and faithful there remain, 
Unchilled by winter's icy chains, 
And one eternal summer reigns 

Within my Buckeye Home. 

The laugh and song ring blithe and gay, 
The bells peal forth their silvery lay, 
As swiftly in our bonny sleigh, 
We glide beneath the moon's pure ray, 

And part the snowy foam. 
While far above with sleepless eye, 
Orion guards the mid-night sky. 
And leads his starry galaxy 

Above my Buckeye Home. 

Thus far from fashion's mazy tide, 
And from the giddy heights of pride, 
Down life's unruffled stream I glide. 

Unnoticed and unknown. 
While hovering round my quiet way, 
Contentment gilds each fleeting day, 
And pleasure's ever genial ray 

Illumes my Buckeye Home. 



OHIO. 

By Mary E. Kail.^^^ 



Ohio, I love thee, for deeds thou hast done 
Thy conflicts recorded and victories won ; 



^^ Mrs. Mary E. Kail was a native of Washington City, but she 
spent the greater part of her life in the village of Leesburg, Carroll 
county. Her poems are mostly patriotic and many have been set to 
music. 



Poems on Ohio. 201 

On the pages of history, beaming and bright, 

Ohio shines forth like a star in the night. 

Like a star flashing out o'er the mountain's blue crest, 

Lighting up with its glory the land of the west ; 

Fr»r thy step onward marching and voice to command, 

Ohio, I love thee, thou beautiful land. 

Commonwealth grandly rising in majesty tall — 
In the girdle of beauty the fairest of all, 
Tho' thunders of nations around thee may roar — 
Their strong tidal waves dash and break on thy shore — 
Standing prouder and firmer when danger is nigh, 
With a power to endure and an arm to defy; 
Ohio shall spread her broad wings to the world, 
Her bugles resounding and banners unfurled. 

A queen in her dignity, proudly she stands. 

Reaching out to her sister states wealth-laden hands, 

Crown'd with plentiful harvests and fruit from the vine, 

And richly increasing ores from the mine. 

While with Liberty's banner unfurled to the sky — 

Resolved for the Union to do or to die — 

Her soldiers and statesmen unflinchingly come, 

'Mid boominp" of cannon and roll of the drum. 

To glory still onward, we're marching along, 
Ev'ry heart true and noble re-echoes the song, 
Ever pledged to each other, through years that have fled, 
We have hope: for the living, and tears for the dead. 
Bless the heroes who suffered, but died not in vain; 
Keep the flag that we love — without tarnish or stain. 
Thus uniting with all, shall my song ever be 
Ohio, my home-land, my heart clings to thee ! 



202 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

OHIO. 

Joseph A. Clark. (1887— )1''« 
[Courtesy of the Southwestern Book.] 

When the evening shades have fallen and the stars are in the sky, 
And my thoughts returning homeward, view the days so long 

gone by, 

I can see my mother standing there beside the blushing rose. 
At the home of my dear childhood, where the old Ohio flows. 

When the silv'ry moon is shining and the woodland birds do call. 
When the world is deep in slumber, and the dew is spread 

o'er all. 
To my heart there comes a yearning, for the scene of long 

ago's — 
For the scenes amid the valleys where the old Ohio flows. 

I can see the streamlet running, I can see a girlish face. 
And upon the picture plainly can her golden tresses trace. 
I can see her there a smiling as the breeze so softly blows 
'Mid the scenes of my dear childhood, where the old Ohio flows. 



THE BUCKEYE PIONEERS. 

OsMAN C. Hooper. 

[This poem was written for the Franklin Centennial, held at Columbus, 

Ohio, September 15, 1897.] 

Fair Buckeyeland ! we sing your praise 

And bare our head to them 
Who lived and wrought in other days 

And framed your diadem. 



"" Joseph A. Clark was born in the city of Cincinnati, December 
8th, 1887. Was educated in the Cincinnati schools, and graduated from 
St. Xavier College in 1906. During his college course he contributed 
many articles and poems to various publications, and at the present time 
is Editor of the Marquette Magazine, published in Cincinnati. Mr. 
Clark has been for a number of years connected with the purchasing de- 
partment of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Ry. 



Poems on Ohio. 203 



Their handiwork none can forget; 

The jewels of the years 
Would in your crown be still unset, 

But for the pioneers ! 



CHORUS. 

Then a song for the pioneers. 
The praise of a hundred years 

For the women true 

And the brave men who 
Were the pioneers. 

They blazed their way through forests deep, 

A hundred years ago, 
And, in the trusty rifle's keep, 

They braved a wily foe. 
They felled the monarchs of the wood, 

They tilled the fertile plain; 
Kind heaven saw and called it good 

And made earth laugh with grain. 
With latch-string out, the cabin door 

Gave greeting unto friend; 
To live was good, but it was more 

To succor or defend. 
And here, in every breast there beat 

A heart to country true, 
Which clad with strength the hurrying feet 

When this old flag was new. 

Undaunted then by any foe, 

If red in coat or face ; 
Unconquered still, their spirits grow 

And give us of their grace. 
And here, where toiled the pioneers, 

There rises now elate, 
The glory of a hundred years. 

The beauteous Buckeye state. 



204 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

.THE SONG OF OHIO. 

When the God of our fathers looked over this land, 
To choose out a country most worthy possessing, 
Where the rivers and plains are beauteous and grand, 
Might so constantly smile on the light of his blessing, 
From Erie's broad waves to the river below, 
The Scioto's sparkle and the Muskingum's flow, 
And the graceful Miamis together rejoice. 
And bless the All-Father with silver-toned voice. 

'Twas here the good angel encamped with his host 

To cheer the brave woodman, 'mid his toil and privation, 

Whose sturdy ave fell, never grudging the cost. 

To rear up such a State, as the gem of the nation ; 

Then join all your voice in grateful acclaim, 

'Tis the triump of toil in Jehovah's great name. 

Our sons and daughters together may sing. 

The Might is the Right, and the Farmer is King. 

— Author Unknoivn. 



Mcpherson — Tennessee. ^*^ 

By Capt. R. K. Shaw, 63RD Ohio, Marietta, O. 

Like a knight of the cavalier time 
Rode McPherson, the leader, sublime, 
When the halo of battle was near; 
The proud monarch of danger and fear, 
And a hero of heroes was he 
When he led in his pride, Tennessee. 

Like a King on his Majesty's throne 
Rode McPherson, the peerless, alone, 
When the sun in the Heaven was high. 
At Atlanta in sultry July. 
And a King of the battle was he 
When he led in his pride, Tennessee 



General J. B. McPherson is buried in the cemetery at Clyde, Ohio 



Poems on Ohio. 205 

When the guns of the skirmishers broke, 

Ere their pealing echoes awoke, 
His black charger was mounted in haste 
And his head to the enemy faced; 
Swiftly flies where his master would be. 
When he led to the fight, Tennessee. 

From the Sixteenth, fast holding its ground, 
To the Seventeenth he hurries around, 
And his soul its high purpose divines 
As he runs into the enemy's lines — 
But one chance ! — and he takes it at sight 
To turn back and lead Tennessee's fight. 

'Twas a glance, and a reining — a wheel, 
And the black charger springs to the steel — 
And soon riderless comes from the town ; 
The lines shudder — McPherson is down ! 
And McPherson — "Revenge !" is the word 
From the lines of the Tennessee heard. 

And McPherson — revenge — is the way 
That the soldiers remember that day. 
They push forward, conquer the plain 
Where McPherson, thier idol, was slain; 
They soon cover the ground where he laid 
In the front of Ohio's Brigade. 

He still leads them, though dead, on the field. 

With a deadlier purpose they wield 

In his presence the weapons they hold. 

Till the rebels far backward are rolled,. 

And a hero in victory, he. 

When he fell at thy head, Tennessee. 

In the hearts of his soldiers he rests. 
For they buried him deep in their breasts ; 
While a throbbing their bosoms shall give. 
Will the love of McPherson still live, 
And a hero of heroes shall be. 
As he was when he led Tennessee, 



206 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

BEAUTIFUL OHIO. 

R. K. Shaw. 

I. 

Beautiful Ohio, 

Fairest daughter of Great Water, 

La Belle River of Great Giver, 

Ohio, ever flow 

Far and free to the sea, 

Ceaselessly and grandly, 

Far and free to the sea. 

XL 

Thou art fed by the dew 

Of the glades of the moui-tiias, 

By their springs, by their fonntaias, 

Running free unto thee 

And with thee to the sea, 

Ceaselessly and grandly, 

Far and free to the sea. 

TIL 
Thou art fed by the geir.s 
From the trees, from their hicms, 
They shiver and quiver, 
AVhen they fall at thy call, 
Floating free unto thee, 
And with thee to the sea, 
Ceaselessly and grandly, 
Far and free to the sea. 

IV. 
Fairest daughter of Great Water, 
Rivers of rivers, God delivers 
A hundred rivers to thee. 
Running free unto thee, 
And with thee to the sea, 
Ceaselessly and grandly, 
Far and free to the sea. 



Poems on Ohio. 207 

V. 



Beautiful Ohio, 
River, home of our pride, 
Oft in rapture we glide 
O'er thy tide to the sea. 
Float gaily, joyously 
On thy breast to the sea, 
Ceaselessly and grandly. 
Far and free to the sea. 

VI. 

Happily by thy side 
We abide, on thy shore 
Evermore, ''Pioneer's Pride," 
Watching thee, floating free, 
Far and free to the sea. 
Ceaselessly and grandly, 
Far and free to the sea. 



Marietta, Ohio, August ist, i88j. 



AT ZEISBERGER'S GRAVE. 

John Milburn Harding. 

(November 17, 1908.) 

[One Hundred Years After he Died.] 

There are tombs of the high, there are graves of the lovv> 

There are sepulchers sacred in story 
But the grave hollowed here just a century ago 

Has a halo of unselfish glory. 
'Mid the scenes of thy triumphs and direst defeat, 

Near the spring rich in savage tradition, 
Here you gave up the ghost and at Jesus' feet 

You implored but a Christian transition. 



208 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

Sixty years of your life you had headed the strife 

To upbuild in the Indian nation 
The Moravian faith in the heavenly life, 

And a prosperous civilization. 
Whether ^'vagabond" preacher, or prisoner in jail, 

Or adviser in savage commotion. 
Or a guest in the lodge, or a guide on the trail. 

You possessed the sincerest devotion. 

Though your labors were vain as to saving the race, 

Yet the souls that were saved numbered many. 
The success of your work on our fair valley's face 

Has scarcely been equaled by any. 
Could you now, brave Zeisberger, return to this vale 

When the church bells on the Sabbath are pealing, 
With thy "Brown Brethren" gone, and the faces all pale, 

Would it bring to you a sad hearted feeling? 

Still the stars twinkle down, and the river still flows, 

And the flowers broom in spring-time at Goshen, ^*^ 
Still the sunshine falls, and the rains and the snows. 

But our life has a greater commotion. 
'Twas the strength of the race — the invincible one — 

That overcame your high hopes and ambition, 
And that forced the brave Red Man to follow the sun 

Would this be to your fruition? 



THE CITY BEAUTIFUL. 

By J. A. Shawan.^*^ 

Standing in the Valley where, 
The peaceful rivers flow — 



"^ Goshen was the name of the Mission House where Zeisberger 
labored and where he died. It is a few miles below New Philadelphia 
on the Tuscarawas. 

"^ Professor J, A, Shawan is Superintendent of Public Schools, 
Columbus, Ohio, and is the author of two little volumes on European 
travel. 



Poems on Ohio. 209 

Threading all the bridges as 

Their waters onward go ; 
Where the golden sunset leaves 

The western sky aglow ; 
This is our Columbus, fair, 

As ev'ry one should know. 

Here the Indian Councils met 

In days of long ago ; 
Met to smoke the pipe of peace, 

Or plan to fight the foe : 
Now Ohio's laws are made 

That govern all the state; 
Now the din, the clatter, clang, 

But mark a city great. 

Here ten-thousand voices blend 

Amid ten-thousand homes. 
Backward yearns the weary heart 

When far away it roams : 
Give us our Columblis, fair. 

And let us here abide 
Where Scioto's gentle stream 

Joins Olentangy's tide. 

CHORUS. 

Singing for Columbus, then. 

And singing for the state; 
Singing for the nation, too. 

Forever good and great : 
O, thou City Beautiful, 

To thee our hearts will cling: 
Happy thoughts of childhood days. 

Thy name will ever bring. 



210 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

OHIO. 

Dr. Aaron Sherman Watkins. ^** 

There's an empire that Hes on the highway of trade, 

'Twixt the lake and the beautiful river, 
And a bright star of loyalty shines on her brow 

And our faith sees it shining forever. 
Then send out the challenge o'er hill, plain and glen; 

From lake, river, streamlet and bayou ; 
To all lands now floating the Red, White and Blue — 

We love the Old Flag in Ohio. 

When forests waved over this empire's domain 

And wild men roamed over her borders, 
"Take from him the talent," the great Master said, 

And an army marched forth with their orders. 
Then read the great record o'er hill, plain and glen; 

O'er lake, river, streamlet and bayou; 
The wilderness wakened and bloomed like the rose 

For those grand pioneers of Ohio. 

Here Grant, Hayes, McKinley and Garfield were born ; 

Written now in their country's grand story, 
And a host of great men to our commonwealth dear, 

The source of her pride and her glory. 



^*^Aaron S. Watkins was born at Rushsylvania, Ohio, November 
29, 1863. After attending the public school he became a student at the 
Ohio Northern University, from which he graduated in 1886. Three 
years later he was admitted to the bar ; in 1902 Taylor University, Up- 
land, Indiana, conferred upon him the LL. D. In 1893 he became a Meth- 
odist minister and served several pastorates in Northern Ohio. From 
1907 to 1909 he occupied the chair of Literature at his Alma Mater. 
Resigning this position he accepted the Presidency of the college at 
Wilmore, Ky. Dr. Watkins was the Prohibition candidate for the Vice- 
Presidency in 1908. In 1905 he was the Prohibition nominee for Gov- 
ernor of Ohio. 



Poems on Ohio. 211 

Then ring out the annals o'er hill, plain and glen, 

O'er lake, river, streamlet and bayou; 
Of the good and the great that our nation has known, 

We have had our full share in Ohio. 

When the dark hand of war overshadowed our land, 

And hearts failed with fear and with terror, 
A multitude rose in this grand Buckeye State 

To strike down disunion and error. 
Then ring out the message o'er hill, plain and glen. 

O'er lake, river, streamlet and bayou ; 
If our nation wants men, in the time of her need. 

She can always depend on Ohio. 



A BUCKEYE HOMECOMING. 

By Thomas Mason Earl. 

(This poem was written to be sung at the Home Coming of the 
Buckeyes at Columbus, Ohio, September 2-6, 1907.) 

My native state, Ohio, 

Once more thy sward I tread, 
Once more my eyes behold thy skies 

Of azure overspread. 
I breathe again thy buoyant air, 

I taste again thy waters cool. 
And feel the joy of growing boy 

By the old swimming pool. 

IVe wandered in the Westlands, 

And East I've chanced to roam, 
But never yet could e'er forget 

Ohio as my home. 



212 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

I loved its meadows, peaceful streams, 
The vine-clad cottage low 

Where first the light broke on my sight 
In time so long ago. 

With clasp again of friendly hands, 

And heart-to-heart commune, 
Dull cares take wing while memories bring 

Aback life's time of June, 
W^hen golden goals rose fair to view 

And high hopes burned sublime. 
When Love was young and all unsung 

The vicissitudes of time. 

Who would not be a Buckeye 

And proud with Buckeye stand 
To own the great OHIO state, 

The fairest of the land? 
Come, raise a carol to her praise, 

The grand old chorus swell : — 
Our prayer shall be, fair state with thee 

Heaven's peace may ever dwell. 



OHIO GOOD AND TRUE. 

(Tune: Austria.) 
By Jacob A. Shawan.^*^ 

Brightly gleams a star of beauty 
In "Old Glory's" field of blue, 

There it shines a glowing emblem 
Of Ohio, good and true. 



1«6-| 



'Jacob A. Shawan, Superintendent of the Columbus, Ohio, schools, 
was born at Wapakoneta, Auglaize County, Ohio. He was educated in 
the public schools and graduated from Oberlin in 1880. Since his grad- 



Poems on Ohio. 213 

We will stand, our dear Ohio, 

Stand for right against the wrong, 

Help to keep thy name unsullied; 
Loyal, faithful, noble, strong. 

O, thou state of happy childhood. 

Rippling brooks, and fields of green. 
All that Nature hath she gives thee 

Richest fruits and skies serene. 
From thy hillsides, from thy valleys. 

Loud the gladsome anthems ring; 
Songs of birds and songs of Nature, 

Songs of joy and peace we bring. 

Mark her Jewels ! Mark her heroes ! 

Office, shop, and field, and glen 
Promptly send a hundred thousand 

When the nation calls for men. 
Float on ! Float ! thou flag eternal ; 

Still that star shall ever shine 
For the Buckeye's fame and honor 

Are forever linked with thine. 



uation he has devoted his life to public education, holding three Super- 
intendencies, — St. Marys, Mt. Vernon and Columbus — in which posi- 
tions he has taken high rank as an educator. He has been frequently- 
honored by his associates to places of confidence in the associations of 
his profession. He has served as President of the Central Ohio Teach- 
ers' Association, Central Ohio Schoolmasters' Club, Treasurer of the 
Ohio Teachers' Association and Vice-President of the National Edu- 
cational Association and member of the National Council of Education. 
In December, 1881, he married Miss Jennie Koch Holmes of Degraff, 
Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Shawan are the parents of three sons. 



214 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

OHIO: A LEGEND. 

D. Tod Gilliam. 

An Aviator sailing through the skies, 
'Tis said, in quest of Paradise, 
Checked suddenly his rapid flight, 
And gazed in rapture at the sight. 
That burst upon his startled eyes, 
And held him speechless in surprise. 
Quoth he, at length, his sense regained, 
*'My long sought purpose is attained, 
If Paradise exist below, 
This surely must be it I know ; 
'Tis Paradise or Ohio. 

T've sailed the skies of every clime, 
I've seen the beautiful, sublime, 
But never in my wanderings wide, 
O'er solid earth or ocean's tide. 
Has such a realm of mortal bliss, 
Filled sense and soul replete like this 
'Tis one or t'other — that I know, 
'Tis Paradise or Ohio. 

"There's naught in space to block the view, 
'Twixt green-clad earth and heaven's blue, 
Save fleecy, flowing, wraith-like shrouds. 
Of erstwhile tumbling summer clouds. 
Mellow light, the perfumed air. 
Birds of plume, flowers rare, 
Birds of song with swelling throat. 
Pulsing lays of sweetest note, 
Crystal streams, the singing brook, 
Sunlit plains, the shaded nook, 



Poems on Ohio. 



215 



Verdant hills, the fleecy flock, 
Bubbling springs, the mossy rock. 
From all I've heard and seen, I know 
'Tis Paradise or Ohio." 




INDEX, 

Anonymous — page 

Back In Old Ohio 1 

Old Erie 17 

The Shawnees at Wapakoneta 57 

To the Ohio 78 

Settlers' Song 108 

Battle of Point Pleasant 109 

Sinclaire's Defeat 110 

The Hills of Ohio 116 

A Party Song 116 

Sandusky 117 

Governor Tod 159 

Ohio's First Printed Poem 167 

The Song of Ohio 204 

Adams, John S. — 

Elizabeth Zane 135 

Brotherton, Alice Williams — 

The Buckeye 10 

Baird, Chambers — 

Sunset on the Ohio River 1& 

To John Rankin 162 

Bryant, William Cullen — 

Pre-Historic Race 35 

A Walk at Sunset 40 

Brooks, Moses — 

An Aposthrophe to a Mound 36 

Blennerhassett, Mrs. Harman — 

The Deserted Isle 113 

Case, Luella J. B. — 

The Indian Relic 44 

Coffinberry, Andrew — 

The Forest Rangers 67 

John Cade's Song 112 

Carleton, Will — 

Sleep, Old Pioneer ! 104 

Cist, Lewis J. — 

Ohio's Pilgrim Band 105 

Child, Maria Lydia — 

Appleseed John 132 

(217) 



218 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

PAGE 

Curry, Otway — 

Log Cabin Song 172 

Clark, Joseph A. — 

Ohio 202 

DoNNELL, Jessie V. — 

Tecumseh 137 

Dalzell, James M. — 

John Gray, Washington's Last Soldier 138 

Dill, Mrs. E. S. — 

Johnny Appleseed 155 

DUFFIELD, D. BeTHUNE — 

Anniversary Ode 174 

Emerson^ William Dana — 

To the Ohio River 12 

Earl, Thomas Mason — 

Ohio. A Buckeye Song 194 

A Buckeye Homecoming 211 

Grant, Nellie — 

Imperium In Imperio 2 

Gallagher, William D. — 

The West 5 

Our Western Land 26 

The Spotted Fawn 51 

Song of the Pioneers 100 

Gilliam, D. Tod — 

Ohio: A Legend 214 

Gilmore, William Edward — 

Lines Written on Mount Logan 17 

Gurley, Rev. L. B. — 

Erie 25 

Hooper, Osman C. — 

Ohio Beautiful 24 

The Buckeye Pioneers 202 

Harbaugh, Thomas C. — 

The Pioneers 65 

Ohio's Soldier Dead 184 

Hawkins, Thomas L. — 

Old Betsy 120 

Hubbard, William — 

At The Grave of Simon Kenton 130 

Harris, Sullivan D. — 

A Song for Ohio 166 

Howe, Harriet M. — 

My Buckeye Home 109 



Index. 219 

PAGE 

Harding^ John Milburn — 

At Zeisberger's Grave 207 

Jones, Charles A. — 

The Old Mound 39 

Tecumseh 60 

The Pioneers 98 

Jones, Julius V. — 

The Indian Maiden 50 

Kelley, Alfred — 

The Black Hand....l 46 

Kinney^ Colonel Co ate s — 

Ohio Centennial Ode 176 

Kail, Mary E. — 

Ohio 200 

McClung, Littell — 

The Ohio 6 

McMeens, Robert R., M. D. — 

The Islands of Erie 35 

Milburn, John — 

The Centennial Ode 181 

McLaughlin, Edward A. — 

To Cincinnati ^ , 185 

Meigs, Return Jonathan — 

A Prophecy 187 

Naylor, James Ball — 

The Hardy Pioneer 96 

The Cumberland Stage 118 

The Old National Road 122 

The Old River Bridge 124 

Johnny Appleseed 150 

The Poet of Clovernook 153 

O'Hara, Helen Francis — 

Ohio Calls You Home 196 

Peabody, Ephraim — 

Western Scenery 3 

Lake Erie 20 

The Ohio 21 

The Backwoodsman 79 

Parker, Benjamin S. — 

Indian Graves 41 

Platt, John J. — 

The Western Pioneer '83 

Plimpton, Florus B. — 

Lewis Wetzel 126 



220 Ohio Arch, and Hist. Society Publications. 

PAGE 

Roberts^ Anna Ricky — 

La Belle Riviere 15 

Rankin^ James — 

Farewell Song of the Wyandot Indians 48 

Ross, A. C. — 

Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too 157 

Sherwood, Kate Brownlee — 

The Buckeye 6 

The Logan Elm 52 

Mahoning Valley Pioneers' Reunion, Sept. 10th, 1877 84 

The Maumee Pioneers 89 

Ohio 191 

Smith, Sarah Louisa P. — 

The Ohio 8 

Shreve, Thomas H. — 

To An Indian Mound 37 

Reflections of An Aged Pioneer 102 

Sperry, William J. — 

A Lament for the Ancient People 62 

Shaw, Elizabeth — 

The Pioneers 92 

Stewart, Gideon Tabor — 

Ohio's Welcome to John Quincy Adams 142 

Southworth, Geo. C. S. — 

Ode on Stanton 161 

Smith, John P. — 

The Sorrow of the Nation 163 

Shaw, Rodney K. — 

The Triumph of Liberty 169 

McPherson — Tennessee 204 

Beautiful Ohio 206 

Sigourney, Mrs. — 

Poem of Lydia Huntley Sigourney 189 

Shawan, J. A. — 

The City Beautiful 208 

Ohio Good and True 212 

Thomas, Frederick W. — 

The Emigrant 74 

Thurston, Mrs. Laura M. — 

Crossing the Alleghenies 81 

Taylor, George Lansing — 

The Northwest , 190 

Thompson, Will Lamartine — 

My Home on the Old Ohio 193 



Index. 221 

PAGE 

Venable, William H. — 

To the Little Miami River 9 

The Buckeye Tree 23 

Wending Westward 63 

The Founders of Ohio 107 

Eighty-Seven 108 

John Filson 147 

Van Cleve, John W. — 

Success to You, Tom Corwin 156 

Watkins, Aaron Sherman — 

Ohio 210 

Whittier^ John Greenleaf — 

The Gary Sisters 155 



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